On Oct. 17, California State University, Bakersfield’s faculty and staff gathered for the Fall 2022 Budget Forum.

The forum was held by Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Business and Administrative Service, Thom Davis, and the Chair of the Academic Senate Budget and Planning Committee and Professor of Applied Mathematics, Dr. Charles Lam.  

President Lynnette Zelezny and CSUB faculty members also attended the forum.  

The forum began with Lam giving a rundown of CSUB’s budget book, dating back to the 2021 fiscal year. Budget books can be found on the CSUB website at www.csub.edu/budget/budgetbook/  

“Notice that this is the budget, not the actual spending,” said Lam.  

Lam pointed out that the numbers provided in the budget book by CSUB were just budget numbers given to the public and not what is being spent, as not everything gets approved. 

$365 million were approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom in June of this year alone.  

Davis shared the budget for infrastructure, as he mentioned the recent gas leaks happening on campus. 

Davis explained that the university isn’t currently receiving funding from the state for the gas leak issue on campus nor salary increases for faculty.  

$83 million was approved for infrastructure. As for deferred maintenance, $2.6 million was approved.  

Davis also said that having the next budget requested sooner is a more efficient way to plan for the fiscal year, although it doesn’t change the process in which the budget is being approved.  

Lam and Davis also discussed the university’s reserves. 

Davis said that reserves standards are supposed to last the university at least three months, but a graph included in the approved budget shows that the reserves for the university were expected to last 1.6 months as of June 2022.  

“Reserves is one of our strategic goals,” said Davis.  

Both Davis and Lam emphasized that this year’s budget is an ongoing process that is being updated constantly.  

In the spring, there will be another budget forum in which updates and future plans will be provided. A strategic goal plan is also set to be discussed in the future.  

When asked about how she felt about how the budget forum went, President Zelezny said, “We’re in good shape.”  

In addition, Zelezny said that she’s very grateful for everything the university does have and that she is excited about plans regarding the university’s budget and improvement moving forward.