By Alex Graf
Managing Editor

California State University, Dominguez Hills may see its currently closed theater and pool re-open, more tenure-track faculty and classes added, and increased resources for food insecure and homeless students. At least that’s the hope from newly elected California Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2019-20 state budget, which he unveiled on Jan. 10.

If approved by the state legislature, the budget would increase annual CSU funding by $300 million in the 2019-20 fiscal year, an 8 percent increase from last year; allocate a one-time expenditure of $247 million for deferred maintenance on the CSU’s 23 campuses along with expanding on-campus child care centers; and includes another one-time infusion of $15 million to help address student hunger and housing needs.

“I am as excited as I have been in a decade about the budget this governor has proposed,” CSUDH President Thomas Parham said, mentioning the deferred maintenance that needs to be addressed on this campus, as well as the need for locker rooms for our athletic teams.

“But we also have got to be able to attend to the need of the academic and instructional elements of the campus,” Parham added. “For us that means increasing tenure density and we’ve got to improve [our] support programs for our students.”

In a move aimed at addressing the growing cost of higher education, Newsom’s budget would make the second year of community college tuition-free and the new funding for the CSU is predicated on a tuition freeze for 2019. 

“You heard me correctly: tuition is off the table,” CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White said at the Jan. 22-23 CSU Board of Trustees meeting.

Students for Quality Education representative Kat Romo said she had to sell personal belongings to pay for community college after she graduated high school in 2009.

“I honestly wish this would have happened when I graduated, Romo said. “I had a gold bracelet that I sold and I had to sell my high school graduation ring.”

Dr. Vivian Price, a California Faculty Association representative and interdisciplinary studies professor at CSUDH, said the CFA is asking that funding be used to hire more tenure track faculty, create more classes and more sections, and to help homeless students and increase access to students who have been turned away from the CSU in the past. Price said the CFA is also asking that $20 million be used for mental health counseling services for students. 

“Counseling is critical to ensuring stressed-out students have a place to go to deal with the emotion of living in today’s economy,” Price said.

While the new budget has not yet been approved by the state legislature, CSUDH political science professor Salvatore Russo anticipates it will move through the legislature “quickly” and said Governor Newsom is in a “favorable situation” with “overwhelming” Democratic majorities in both branches of the state legislature. 

“It’s really just based on the political will of Democrats in the legislature,” Russo said.  “Democrats and Newsom would probably like this to hang their hats on.”