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College dodges more cuts but ’09-10 trouble still looms
The Advocate
While Mt. Hood Community College has been able to avoid additional cuts to this year’s budget, a lack of funding for 2009-2010 still looms while possible answers to budget issues have begun to arise.
“In large measure thanks to Sen. Rod Monroe, community colleges were spared additional cuts in this year’s budget,” said Sygielski in an all-staff email Monday.
Monroe, who is also on the MHCC District board, said Tuesday the state sold $170 million in lottery bonds to assist community colleges This will prevent MHCC from taking losses that would equate to more than the $600,000 reduction in funding that was pulled in January. However, the revenue forecast also projects that the state will be $3 billion short for the 2009-11 biennium.
“I can’t guess what amount will be taken out (of MHCC’s funding) for the next biennium,” said Monroe. “We’ll have $1.5 billion in reserves from the U.S. stimulus package and rainy day funding, but that still leaves us short $1.5 billion.”
Monroe said the rest of the money will most likely come from tax increases, specifically on beer and cigarettes.
“As far as the college level is concerned,” said Monroe. “I would prefer not to have tuition raised. If it means preventing the college from going bankrupt, I would vote for a tuition increase. But right now I can’t see it being more than $1 or $2 (per credit) at the most, if there is a serious discussion.”
Chief Operating Officer Michael Wolfe said Wednesday the current report shows an allocation of about $485 million to community colleges, down about $15 million from years past.
“The governor comes out with his revised budget on March 2, which will give us a better idea for rebalancing the numbers for this fiscal year,” said Wolfe. “We’re basically in ‘waiting’ mode. There hasn’t been much talk about the hard numbers other than what Dr. Ski has said because they haven’t been released yet.”
Faculty Association President Gary DeRoest agreed that the college is, for the most part, in “waiting” mode until the governor’s budget plan is released.
“The Faculty Association hasn’t been talking much about how we can help out with the budget, but we are very concerned about making sure services to students are still maximized as much as possible,” said DeRoest. “I don’t have an idea as to what we really need to do to save money and get immediate help.
“There have been no discussions regarding cutting workdays or working a few days without pay to keep from cutting the school year short,” DeRoest said. “We (the Faculty Association) have just signed this new contract with a number of MOUs (memorandums of understanding) to help the college meet its goals and missions. We have not received any requests to talk about cutting days.”
DeRoest said that while he is in full support of having the conversation of cutting days if the need arises, he said he would need to see sufficient evidence that this was required.
“It’s a very difficult question,” said DeRoest. “What if the governor were to come out and tell college students that for a term they would have to pay double tuition? There would be a lot of people dropping out of school because they couldn’t pay for it. So I think an across-the-board ask of pay cuts is inappropriate.
“I know that reductions are being made at a state-wide level to help with the budget,” he said. “But I also imagine that there are a lot of teachers working day to day, and any kind of reduction may cause them undue hardship.”
Sygielski said that the possibility of cutting workdays has not been discussed, but that administrators would probably know by April or May if it were becoming prudent.
“Right now our focus is on the deficit,” said Sygielski. “It’s probably going to be about $1 million this year, unless creative ways to generate revenue are shown to cut these numbers, and next year we’re looking at coming up about $4 million short. But I am pleased that all options will be evaluated for preserving positions and helping students.”
A budget and planning forum is set for March 23-27, and there will be a district budget committee meeting on April 15 when that group will tentatively approve a 2009-2010 budget. That same day, the Multnomah County Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission is likely to begin their review of the budget. On June 10, the board will have its budget hearing before the TSCC, and then are expected to adopt the 2009-2010 budget.
However, Sygielski is more concerned at the moment with his town hall meetings, which are scheduled to take place for another week.
Throughout Sygielski’s town hall meetings that he has been holding at various locations around campus, there have been many “effective” ideas coming from faculty, administrators and students, according to Sygielski.
During Thursday’s town hall meetings, in which Sygielski has been pushing cost cutting and increasing revenue, some ideas that arose were:
- Increasing energy efficiency by lowering the heat in classrooms by a couple degrees.
- Engage the community in a monthly campus clean-up day.
- Charging a fee for parking passes.
- Increase public transportation involvement with students.
- Hiring additional part-time faculty to teach specific classes.
- Employing more student workers.
- Stop mailing class schedules and converting enrollment information to entirely online versions.
- Reduce the number of workdays, as well as lower the number of hours in workweeks.
- Combining textbook information into packets for students to redirect revenue toward the college rather than outside sources.
- Create additional ways to get people on campus during the summer, such as the creation of an “Oktoberfest,” having more theater shows, and a possible “Saturday market” or “farmer’s market” on campus.
Regarding Monroe’s comments on a tuition increase, Sygielski said, “My biggest concern is making sure that college is affordable for all students. We will be a key institution in helping the economy recover. If a discussion about tuition happens to help the school stay afloat, the board will handle it very carefully.”
Associated Student Government President Janine Johnston said that she and the rest of the ASG would very likely avoid making recommendations to administrators to raise tuition unless it became “absolutely necessary.”
“None of us are in favor of a tuition increase and we feel that there are better ways to fix the budget and fund the school,” said Johnston. “I’d have to see where everyone else in student government stood to be sure. If an initiative is passed though, everyone would have to be on board one way or another.”