 "Photo: Cody McFarland / The Advocate")
Laying off — or forcing faculty and staff members to retire — in order to save money is like skipping a home-cooked meal for McDonald’s because it’s cheaper.
What seems like a smart trade in the short term carries greater costs in the future than are often foreseeable.
Director of Business Services Manager Mariles Magalong said Contra Costa College needs to slash $2 million from its 2010-11 budget.
These cuts are not the same for every program, she said, and some areas suffer more than others. Categorical programs, for instance, lost 40 percent of their operating funds.
Administrators say that they have tried most everything already, and there is nowhere left to cut. Even if there was some new way to reduce spending, President McKinley Williams said, there would still be objections.
“No matter what you do, you lose. It’s hard to justify,” he said.
But maybe that’s just it. Perhaps we’re all looking for one target to share the entire load and cry out when we feel the crosshairs directed at us.
Most are against raising tuition fees, even if it’s just a couple bucks.
Yet, this complete intransigence suggests that a college of packed-to-the-brim classes, lower faculty-to-student ratios and reduced course variety charging $26 a unit is preferable to one with improved numbers in all those categories that requires a slightly higher admission fee.
Sure, many already struggle with the current rate. Raising tuition, however, would increase revenue and possibly protect services like financial aid from getting cut, thus fixing the problem of expensive classes.
Coinciding with an action such as this could be the voluntary yet modest, it can even just be a few percent, reduction in salary for those in the district who already make six figures.
Maybe additional massive, repeated fundraisers could be organized and maintained for the benefit of the district and its community.
Perhaps more people in the community can come together in solidarity and petition for new laws for education.
Admittedly, to some extent, some of these proposals are already being suggested or implemented on some scale.
But if we were to combine them and enact reform as a unit, fewer employees who have served at the colleges for more than 20 years would be forced out.
Sure, these decisions would necessitate a certain level of investment.
Though looking out at the deluge of no-think, low-quality restaurants in the surrounding area and the types of lifestyles they yield, do we really want a district modeled after fast food culture?
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