Fresno State faces $11 million cut if state tax plan fails - Heather Somerville, The Fresno Bee

Fresno State would have to ax $11 million later this year from its already bare-bones budget if a state tax measure proposed for the November ballot fails, President John Welty said Wednesday in a sobering message to the university community. That cut -- amounting to about 5% of the university's budget -- would come on top of the $5.4 million cut the campus absorbed in December and would be "impossible" to take, Welty said. "For the last three and a half years, our ability to meet the needs of students and our region has been stretching and stretching -- nearly to the breaking point -- because our elected officials have abandoned the state's commitment to higher education," Welty said at the spring assembly at California State University, Fresno.