By Daily Press staff
Santa Monica College faculty are planning to protest planned program eliminations and faculty lay-offs at a special meeting of the college’s Board of Trustees on May 15 at the Madison Campus school.
The meeting will start at 12:30 p.m. The college trustees will be voting on a proposal by college administrators to eliminate eight vocational programs at the college and lay-off eight full time faculty. The cuts are planned in response to the state budget crisis. The college has also threatened to lay-off between 50 and 100 permanent classified staff.
On May 2, a faculty committee presented an alternative budget cutting proposal to the college’s budget committee. After a four-hour meeting, the committee recommended to SMC President Piedad Robertson that the faculty proposal be used as a basis for discussing college budget cuts. The faculty proposal came up with enough cuts to reach the college’s “worst-case scenario” of a $15 million cut, which was based upon Gov. Gray Davis’ January budget. Under the “worst case scenario” proposal supported by the budget committee, no programs would be eliminated and neither full-time faculty nor classified staff would be laid off.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 14, 2003. Read the original PDF.