Accusations of anti-labor bias, a decade of poor financial stewardship and a leadership vacuum collided at Santa Monica College’s Board of Trustees May meeting, as members traded sharp criticisms over mass layoffs while the institution’s financial reserves continued a four-year slide toward insolvency.
The board voted 6-2 to finalize the termination of 45 classified employees — custodians, administrative assistants, parking enforcement officers, tutors and other support staff — effective June 30, as the college grapples with a projected $14.7 million deficit heading into the 2026-27 fiscal year. The dissenting votes came from Trustees Margaret Quiñones-Perez and Rob Rader, who both condemned the board’s decade-long pattern of fiscal mismanagement and argued that the burden of the crisis was being placed squarely on the workers least responsible for creating it.
“We have had a crisis of leadership at every level in this college, including the board,” Trustee Rader said before casting his no vote. “And yet today we are taking decisions to place the costs of those decisions on the people that have the least responsibility for them, instead of having a fully shared pain amongst everybody.”
Trustee Quiñones-Perez went further, accusing a faction of her colleagues of being ideologically hostile to labor. “I can guarantee you that we have three very strong anti-labor board members, very strong,” she said. “I’m not going to sit here in silence and have them talk about taking away your health benefits, talk about cutting classes, talk about cutting salaries when it’s not done among themselves.”
The acrimony unfolded as the board also received a third-quarter budget report showing the college’s unrestricted general fund reserves are projected to fall to roughly $16.9 million by June 30, representing just 7.14% of total expenditures. The Chancellor’s Office recommends a minimum reserve ratio of 16.67%. The college’s reserves peaked at $43.9 million in 2021-22, bolstered by federal pandemic relief funds, and have declined every year since — a loss of more than $27 million, or roughly 61% of reserves, in four years.
Vice President of Business Administration Chris Bonvenuto, presenting the quarterly budget report, told the board that even with the recent actions factored in, the college’s revenues will continue to be outpaced by expenditures. He estimated the layoffs and restructuring measures approved Monday would generate approximately $8 million in savings, leaving a remaining gap of $6 million to $7 million that will still need to be addressed.
“Even with all we’ve done tonight, our revenues will still be outpaced by our expenditures,” Bonvenuto said. “The numbers are extremely high, and you have more work to do.”
The third-quarter budget report showed total projected revenues of $230.2 million against projected expenditures and transfers of $236.8 million, yielding an operating deficit of approximately $6.6 million after accounting for one-time revenue items including $2 million in state wildfire assistance, a $2.7 million transfer from the college’s auxiliary fund — which has now been depleted — and a $1 million donation from the SMC Foundation. Bonvenuto cautioned the board that none of those one-time sources would be available in the coming fiscal year.
Salary and benefit costs have been the primary drivers of the structural deficit. Combined academic and classified salaries have grown more than 20% since 2021-22, while benefits have increased 25% over the same period, adding nearly $40 million to the college’s expense base. Health and welfare costs have continued rising steeply, and the college projects a $553 million increase in retirement payouts this year alone as nearly 20 employees announce June retirements — roughly four times the typical annual retirement rate — triggering mandatory vacation and banked-hours payouts totaling approximately $1.1 million.
The wave of retirements added a pointed dimension to Monday’s debate. Faculty Association representative Peter Morse, who has attended board meetings since 2013, noted that the employees losing their jobs “are not the ones who caused” the financial crisis and criticized the administration for failing to act on years of warnings from constituent groups. “Despite years of calls from constituents for action to address structural issues at the college in a thoughtful, student- and employee-centered way, little was done to reimagine the college, to rebuild morale, or to assess where we wanted to be as an institution in one, five or 10 years,” Morse said.
He also challenged the board on the retirement-related compensation packages being funded even as classified workers were being let go, arguing there was still “little evidence” the administration was committed to the structural changes and metric-based planning needed for long-term stability.
Academic Senate President Vicenta Arrizon told the board he had pleaded for corrective action “at nearly every meeting” and warned that the structural deficit extends beyond the current crisis into the 2027-28 fiscal year. The Chancellor’s Office is currently monitoring the college against seven indicators of systemic fiscal distress, and Arizon noted the college meets five of them — including negative spending trends and reserve levels below recommended thresholds.
The recent layoffs were not the first. The college previously eliminated approximately 70 classified staff and management positions as it confronted the now-$16.7 million projected deficit. Those earlier cuts followed $8.6 million in cost reductions already implemented for the current fiscal year, including a 5% reduction in class schedules and attrition-based position eliminations. This month’s action formalized the remaining terminations after an administrative law judge issued a proposed decision that the board adopted.
Among those terminated were custodians, switchboard operators, parking enforcement officers, English and math tutors, a plumber, a painter, a library assistant, research analysts and financial aid specialists. Several employees displaced colleagues with less seniority rather than accept termination outright, a common feature of classified layoff proceedings under California Education Code.
CSEA Chapter 36 representative Cindy Ordaz offered a sober tribute to the departing workers, noting that classified professionals had ratified a successor contract with personal pay reductions by a 91% margin — an act of solidarity, she said, aimed at preventing additional layoffs. “They are not the ones who created this fiscal crisis,” she said. “They just stepped up to help protect each other.”
Trustee Rader, in his floor remarks, attempted to introduce an amendment directing the college to voluntarily seek guidance from the Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team, or FICMAT, as an alternative to the layoffs. The motion failed to receive a second.
Among those laid off and who addressed the board was Antonio Sanchez, an 11-year employee of the college’s grounds department who thanked the board for the opportunity to serve and asked to be considered for rehire when conditions improve.
Bonvenuto told the board the May budget revision from the state — which could reflect significantly higher-than-projected tax revenues — would inform the tentative budget presentation next month. He cautioned, however, that even under the most optimistic assumptions, any additional state funds would not close the structural gap entirely. The college’s final adopted budget is expected in September.
Board Chair Sion Roy, who voted in favor of all three personnel resolutions, offered a sober assessment as the meeting drew to a close.
“There is nothing positive that comes from this from a human perspective,” Roy said. “My only hope is that this provides at least some clarity in the short term, though I know it’s clarity on the backs of people who have long sacrificed for the college.”
editor@smdp.com