Issue Briefs: Parking: Policy, Law, and Regulations

The Master Plan for Higher Education in California (1960) recommended that ancillary services such as parking be self-supporting:

The operation of all such ancillary services for students as housing, feeding, and parking be self-supporting. Taxpayers’ money should not be used to subsidize, openly or covertly, the operation of such services. Because of the various methods which are used to finance construction of auxiliary enterprises such as residence halls and dormitories, it is impossible to state specifically which portions of amortization and interest payments are properly chargeable to operating expense. Consequently, it is recommended further that the governing boards determine which of such costs are appropriate charges to operating expense and include as much as possible of those with other operating expenses of such ancillary services. (Recommendation 4, p. 174)

This recommendation has been followed in structuring parking facility funding and parking fees collection. Section 89701 of the California Education Code authorizes the Board of Trustees to construct, operate and maintain motor vehicle parking facilities and to prescribe the terms and conditions for these facilities, including payment of fees. In order to realize the legislature’s intent that parking be self-funded, section 89701 also establishes the State University Parking Revenue Fund in the State Treasury. Education Code section 89721 (i) authorizes the depositing of parking fees in local trust accounts.

Section 89035 of the Education Code authorizes the Board of Trustees to delegate certain of its powers to the Chancellor, who, in turn, can delegate certain powers and authority to campus presidents (“Standing Orders of the Board of Trustees of the California State University”). Executive Order 740 (the student fee policy) delegates to the campus presidents the authority to adjust student and employee parking fees. (Attachment 4, pp. 2-4). Executive Order 740 requires presidents to establish and consult with a “campus/student fee advisory committee” prior to adjusting student parking fees; it makes the results of the review advisory to the president.

There are, however, two important exceptions to this process. The first is that for parking fees assessed under Ed Code section 89701, a CSU collective bargaining agreement may supersede and set the parking fee rate. The second applies when bonds have been issued under the State University Revenue Bond Act of 1947, in which case, the authority to set and adjust fees derives from Ed Code section 90012 (the Revenue Bond Act) and supersession by collective bargaining agreements does not apply.

In 1995 the Board of Trustees decentralized many university programs, including parking, in order to improve accountability and satisfy the campuses’ desire for greater autonomy. When parking was decentralized, each campus assumed full financial responsibility for all parking-related expenditures and the parking reserves held by the system were distributed to the campuses. As a result the system lost the flexibility it had once had to move parking dollars from one campus to another in order, for example, to aid a small campus that needed to build a parking structure. The small campuses must now raise their own funds from their own small pools of users to construct their own parking facilities.