Debt hits $2 million

Facing a $2.2 million budget deficit for the 2010-11 academic year, the discussion of possible staff and faculty layoffs and a decline in student services and programs is under way, college officials say.

As a new district allocation model awaits implementation in July, the college is preparing to gain more control over its state funds to better address the blows of the budget crisis.

Yet, with looming state reductions targeting higher education, more control does not guarantee that Contra Costa College is safe from enforcing drastic changes such as employee layoffs to reduce its spending, Director of Business Services Mariles Magalong said.

This is because the eventual funding will not provide "100 percent support," district interim Director of Fiscal Services Judy Breza said.

"With the funding declining at the state and expenditures continuing to increase, (there is) a backwards budget picture at CCC," she said.

While further state reductions have not yet been factored in, CCC will need to reduce its college budget over a five-year period, said Kindred Murillo, vice chancellor of districtwide administrative services.

Magalong said, "We are not immune from what's going on in the world. (These cuts) will change the face of higher education."

Recommended by the Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, the new allocation model emulates Senate Bill 361, a state funding formula where money is divided among the colleges based on the number of full-time equivalent students (FTES) they generate. The FTES system, where one FTES is equal to every 15 units taken at a college, is how the district is funded.

Implementation of SB 361 is expected to give the colleges more autonomy with their funds, college Vice President Carol Maga said.

Historically, however, CCC has received more money from the district than it generates in FTES to fund additional services for its students, Maga said.

"We served a student population with more college preparatory needs," she said. "It took more work to help our students succeed."

Despite granting the college autonomy to regulate itself, the new allocation model consequently provides CCC with fewer funds, causing more demands for reductions in expenditures.

"It's a loss to us (and) a loss of recognition that we are a different college to our sister colleges," Maga said.

To deal with the "substantial change," she said potential cuts in all areas of the college are being deliberated.

On top of cutbacks to the class schedule and student services such as counseling, tutoring and mentoring, the college may have to begin reducing staff and faculty, Maga said.

Magalong said, "If you do the math, there's nowhere else to cut. There is no way that the reductions can be done without affecting people."

Often seen as a last resort in efforts to reduce the entire college budget, the act may be unavoidable, Maga said.

"The last thing you want to do is reduce humans, but (it looks like) we have to do that as well," she said.

Murillo said district efforts have tried to alleviate the sudden severity of the reductions to the college, such as the shift of $830,000 in FTES from Diablo Valley College to CCC.

In return, once the district experiences economic growth, DVC will receive a chance to get the money back.

"(DVC is) helping out their sister college, but they also have the opportunity to be made whole eventually," she said.

Magalong said the district has given CCC $1.7 million in one-time reserve funds.

"The problem is for next year, (because) we spent down our reserves," Murillo said. "We're not going to really be able to do much backfill."

Though these changes attempt to ease the impact of the district cutback in funds, state budget reductions expected in the next year may deal another blow to community colleges, Murillo said.

Breza said, "It's an economic situation that the entire state is faced with and community colleges are just one component of that puzzle."

Contact Asia Camagong at acamagong.advocate@gmail.com