Area community colleges say they plan to continue cutting instructors, staff and classes for the fall term due to lingering state budget deficit problems. For the 2011-2012 fiscal year, state and local funding for California community colleges will drop from $10.14 billion to $9.78 billion, a decrease of $360 million or about 3.6 percent, according to the state’s Department of Finance. There are threats of further cuts in the middle of the fiscal year, if revenue projections aren’t met, said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance. Officials at Glendale Community College, Pierce College and College of the Canyons say they are figuring out how to make their dollars stretch. In the past two years, about 80 vacancies have opened up at Glendale Community College, and there are only plans fill up to 20 of those, said Ron Nakasone, the college’s vice president of administrative services. About half of the vacant positions include instructors, while the rest include administrative and support staff. Nakasone said the jobs opened through attrition and an early retirement incentive program implemented earlier this year. In order to avoid cutting the number of classes offered for the fall and spring semesters, the college has asked all of its employees to take a 5 percent pay cut for the coming year, Nakasone said. The college is currently negotiating with faculty and certain staff members for the concessions. “Our loss of revenue was actually a lot more than last year,” he said. “That’s why we’re going back to the groups asking for a pay cut.” The college is trying to maintain all of its class offerings for the upcoming fall and spring 2012 semesters, Nakasone said. But it was forced to scale back offerings for this year’s summer session, and it has completely eliminated its upcoming winter session, he said. Other community colleges say they will be cutting fall semester classes this year. Pierce College in Woodland Hills has cut about 2 percent of its class offerings for this fall, said Anna Davies, the college’s vice president of academic affairs. Compared with last fall, that’s a difference of about 70 classes, she said. The college has not eliminated full-time faculty positions, but part-time instructors have lost some opportunity, Davies said. “The biggest impact is on our students, because we have less access for them, and that’s really difficult for all for us,” she said. “From a faculty perspective, we are seeing larger class sizes, and we are seeing a huge demand … for the classes.” Ron Norton Reel, president of the Community College Association, said about 4,000 part-time instructors have lost their jobs statewide in the past last two years. And that doesn’t account for part-timers who just had their workloads reduced. Community colleges increasingly are using part-time instructors to replace full-time positions that go vacant, because their positions can be easily cut when classes are eliminated, Reel said. “Community colleges part-timers don’t get pink slips,” he said. “They (the colleges) just don’t offer them classes.” College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita is reducing its fall class offerings by about 2.2 percent, with 33 fewer classes offered compared to last fall, said John McElwain, spokesman for the college. However, the college has taken other cost-cutting measures in order to mitigate major reductions in its summer and winter sessions, McElwain said. The school is able to use funds from last year’s budget that went unused, he explained. College of the Canyons also reorganized its class offerings to better reflect fill rates, McElwain said. If the governor’s budget for the next fiscal year remains as proposed, the college will probably be able to add more classes, he said.
State Budget Constraints Push Colleges to Cut Classes, Staff
