Budget Update Communications

March 2024 Budget Town Hall

On Monday, March 11, President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Vincent Del Casino, Jr., and Vice President for Administration and Finance and CFO Charlie Faas hosted a budget town hall at the Student Union Theater. Assistant Vice Chancellor for System Budget for the California State University Ryan Storm also presented the outlook for the system for fiscal year 2024-2025.

Watch the recording of the Budget Town Hall
View the Budget Town Hall slide deck [pdf]

Frequently Asked Questions from the Town Hall

• Will there be layoffs?

  • We do not have a layoff plan at this time. Various workgroups may make organizational recommendations that involve restructuring, and there could be changes in staffing that come with reorganization. With a reorganization there may also be reassignments.

• Will there be furloughs?

  • Furloughs can only be implemented at the CSU system level. 

• Will there be voluntary exits?

  • Nothing is planned at this time.

• How will the budget work group recommendations influence the budget?

  • We are looking at every division to implement a 6% base budget reduction starting on July 1, 2024.  The workgroups will be focused on the four R’s - Reduce, Reallocate and/or Restructure to achieve this, while also needing to Repay the $12M in borrowing from the fiscal year 2023-2024 deficit. 

• Did the recent compensation increases have an effect on the deficit?

  • Yes. We did not have a balanced budget prior to the compensation increases so the compensation increases raised our total deficit. In fiscal year 2023-2024, we only had one source of funds for compensation, which was through new compact funding from the CSU through the state. In fiscal year 2024-2025, one source for salary increases is the compact funding, and other campus sources include tuition increases and reallocation of internal operating funds over the next two years. 

    The university is responsible for managing all its resources which include the compact funding, tuition and general fund to honor all collective bargaining agreements and associated salary increases. We support all employees being paid fairly and equitably.  

• How did the first round of budget cuts at SJSU get distributed? 

  • The first round of cuts, when complete, will total $29.5M dollars. Of those cuts, $10.4M were assigned to Academic Affairs (or 3.90% of the AA budget). The remaining $19.1M were assigned to all the other divisions (or a 10% reduction). This was in line with our strategy to make the first round of cuts relative to the investments that were made in the original Transformation 2020 Strategic Plan. 

• What about Athletics?

  • In the first round of budget cuts at SJSU, Athletics was assigned $1.1M dollars in cuts (or 9.8 percent of their General Fund operating costs). Those permanent cuts go into effect on July 1, 2024, as Athletics, like Academic Affairs and IT, deferred some cuts to next year. That said, Athletics has cut $1.0M dollars from their base this year and have thus produced a one-time savings of over $500,000 dollars. 

• What is the relationship between our enrollment and overall budget challenges?

  • There is a direct relationship between the two. SJSU hit a height for enrollment of 28,606 FTES in the Fall of 2021, when the campus was enrolling way above California resident target and international enrollment was also strong. For Fall 2023, SJSU enrolled 27,186 FTES, a difference of nearly 1,500 FTES. This represents a decline of both California resident and non-resident enrollment, both of which have an impact on our overall budget (approximately $12.5M). In short, when SJSU was significantly overenrolled and had higher non-resident student enrollments, we had much more revenue and institutional reserves. We also grew in all areas of the university, because we had the enrollment growth funds to do so. 

• What is the relationship between the general fund and all other sources of revenue on campus?

  • The total campus budget is $756M. The General Fund has $448M in revenue and $308M is from Auxiliaries, Enterprises and self-support.

• How will self-supports be impacted by this campus deficit?

  • All self-support, auxiliaries and enterprises need to following the General Fund's lead on process improvement, shared services, focusing on core mission, limited year-to-year growth (exceptions are PaCE and Spartan Village on the Paseo), restructuring, etc.

• Given that we have experienced a budget shortfall and buildings are only getting older -- what do our reserves for capital projects look like as we need to make repairs around campus? 

  • Deferred maintenance at SJSU and across the CSU has always been significantly underfunded. We will have to prioritize critical repairs and maintenance with the limited budgets we have.

September 2023 Budget Summit

Review the recap to the fall 2023 budget summit that was held on September 14, 2023.

Budget Campus Communications