Cal State Students, Faculty Protest Budget Cuts

Carson - Union-organized protests against budget cuts to the California State University system were held today at all of its campuses.

The aim of "Take Class Action: Demand Quality Education" was "to bring greater public attention to what's going to happen to the CSU if we have a billion-dollar cut to the system," said Teri Yamada, president of the Cal State University Long Beach chapter of the California Faculty Association, the union that represents the system's faculty and the event's organizer.

"It's incomprehensible how it's going to impact the entire CSU. It will not be the same institution it was before."

The recently adopted state budget cut the system's funding by $500 million to $2.2 billion, the same amount as 1999 when there were 100,000 fewer students in the system, according to Claudia Keith, the Cal State University's assistant vice chancellor of public affairs.

An additional $500 million cut is possible if Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to extend or restore a series of tax increases originally approved in 2009 is not approved, Keith said.

To reverse the budget cuts, the association supports "a more progressive" tax system, an oil and gas severance tax and Brown's proposal to extend or restore the tax increases, Yamada told City News Service.

Legislative Republicans oppose putting Brown's proposal on a special election ballot because "the public has been asked many times recently to raise taxes or to make it easier for the Legislature to raise taxes and has rejected every request at the ballot box," and "continued high taxation is exactly the wrong thing to do during perilous economic times and in the face of a weak recovery," said Assemblyman Donald P. Wagner, R-Irvine.

A 12.5 percent oil and gas severance tax, as proposed in AB 1326 by Assemblyman Warren Furutani, D-Harbor Gateway, would cause unemployment in the oil and gas industries, as the additional cost to drill new wells in California "would make it very difficult attract investors," according to Rock Zierman, the chief executive officer of the California Independent Petroleum Association, a trade association representing approximately 450 independent crude oil and natural gas producers.

The protestors "should know that Senate Republicans provided Governor Brown a path to a bipartisan budget solution, but the governor halted budget negotiations over two weeks ago," said Jann Taber, communications director for Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga.

Brown "continues to speak with Republicans who have an interest in being part of the solution," said Evan Westrup, Brown's deputy press secretary.

Budget cuts in previous years have reduced class offerings, increased class sizes and prompted students to take jobs to pay for their educations, taking them longer to receive their degrees.