CFA Members Advocate for Greater Transparency with New Legislative Bills

In light of the hidden agendas behind CSU management’s actions, which have been increasingly evident through abrupt and startling program closures and job layoffs, some of our legislative priorities are committed to ensuring transparency in management’s decision-making processes in our institution.

As we enter our first year of the 2025-2026 biennial legislative session, we have chosen to sponsor three bills that would hold management more accountable for their activities.

Assembly Bill (AB) 326 requires an external audit of each of the CSU campuses at least once every three years, with the results of the audits made publicly available. Our goal is to ensure that campus administrators are scrutinized and held responsible for inadequate policies and decision-making.

To that end, we also need to verify that management’s spending aligns with CSU’s educational values, not corporate interests. AB 530 would make information about all of management’s expenditures of state funds over $10,000 publicly available by July 1, 2027. This information would include amounts, descriptions, and purposes of expenditures like grants, contracts, subcontracts, purchase orders, and investments, as well as the identities of departments making an expenditure and the recipients of CSU funds.

Our third sponsored bill, AB 958, would require that the CSU Board of Trustees appoint another faculty member to the board, and that the faculty member appointees come from a list of names of at least four faculty given by the Academic Senate of the CSU. Currently, the 25-member board has only one faculty representative, while many other trustees have ties to the private sector (particularly real estate and finance) and lacking any real comprehension of the needs and challenges are within our education system.

Additionally, with the recent changes in our federal administration, the need to protect our undocumented and mixed-status students, faculty, and staff has become more urgent than ever. To address this concern, we have co-sponsored Senate Bill (SB) 98, which requires education institutions to notify all stakeholders in the event that immigration officers are on campus.

Lastly, our co-sponsored bill, AB 340, seeks to establish confidential communications between union representatives and union members related to representational matters. We must shield our workers’ rights and prevent any coercion, interference, or retaliation from administrators.

We believe these bills can help promote a more transparent, safe, and inclusive higher education system that can fulfill the promises of shared governance. By restoring power to our faculty, staff, and students, we can ensure they take the lead in steering our education system to a place of belonging and community thriving.