Chancellor's Communication-August 29, 2000

TO:         All CSU Employees
 
FROM:     Chancellor Reed
 
DATE:     August 29, 2000
 
SUBJECT: Welcome to the California State University
 
Good morning, and welcome to a new academic year at the California State University. I am especially pleased to welcome the new faculty and staff members who are joining us this fall. We are very proud to have all of you as members of the CSU family.
 
This is the first of an anticipated series of e-mails I will be sending to all CSU employees to communicate important information. I know that sometimes in a system as large and geographically expansive as ours, it can be difficult to find accessible and reliable information about the CSU system. Hopefully, these e-mails will offer a good opportunity for me to share some of that important information with you.
 
I wanted to begin by sharing the good news about the budget Gov. Davis signed over the summer. This is one of the best budgets the CSU has ever seen. Our total general fund budget is approximately $2.5 billion; and the general fund increase totals $333.7 million, our largest increase ever.
 
What does this mean for the CSU? It means that our top two priorities -- access for students and compensation for employees -- will be funded as follows:
 
Access -- The budget includes a $73.1 million general fund increase to accommodate the 12,577 additional full-time equivalent students expected to enroll during this academic year.
 
Compensation -- The budget includes $113.2 million for a six percent compensation pool for all CSU employees. This continues to help close the faculty salary gap.
 
The budget also includes funds for year-round operations, community service learning, CSU Channel Islands, CSU Stanislaus Stockton Center, technology training for teachers, and the California Workforce Initiative, which funds strategic programs in such fields as nursing, agriculture, engineering and computer science.
 
This budget will allow us to continue to focus on our priorities of serving students, assisting the public schools, improving and expanding teacher preparation, eliminating the need for remedial education, and making the most of new advances in technology. It will also allow us to add a new focus on preparing students for the workforce of California. You can find more information about the budget on our web site at /pa/news/budget2000.shtml.
 
If you have any questions about this information, you may respond to this e-mail through the end of the day Friday, September 1, 2000. You may send your replies to csu-chancellor@calstate.edu. Given the large volume of responses expected -- this e-mail is being sent to all 40,000 CSU faculty and staff -- I regret that I will not be able to respond to your questions individually. However, I will identify the most frequently asked questions and post answers to them on my page on our web site ( http://www.calstate.edu/executive/index.shtml) by the end of the day Monday, September 11, 2000. (I understand that those of you on quarter calendars may not return in time to respond to this first message, but I will provide more opportunities for you to send me comments or questions throughout the year.)
 
Thank you for the work you do every day to make the CSU an outstanding university system.
last updated 29 August 2000