No end in sight for school budget woes
In the wake of massive state cuts, Santa Monica College now must eliminate 10 academic programs, 13 administrative positions and 13 full-time, tenured professors to stay afloat next year.
The cuts will affect thousands of students who are currently enrolled in the programs. About 1,900 of SMC’s 30,000 students concentrated their studies in one of the endangered programs, school officials said.
The 10 school programs to be cut from SMC’s roster are architecture, fashion design and merchandising, geographic information systems, interior design, office information systems, public safety, recreation, respiratory therapy, tourism and hospitality and transportation technology.
Santa Monica College’s Board of Trustees approved the cuts on Monday. The cuts — which will go into effect July 1 and save the school $2 million — mark the college’s most recent effort to reconcile a loss in state funding, officials said.
Community colleges throughout California are scrambling to make up for a $288 million shortage in funding this year and another $530 million next year, if proposed cuts by Gov. Gray Davis are approved.
About 85 percent of SMC’s budget is state-funded, according to school officials.
Officials said SMC’s goal is to slash its budget by $5 million this year and another $15 million for the 2003-2004 school year.
All 13 full-time, tenured professors who currently teach courses under the programs will be laid off, as well as several adjunct faculty members, SMC spokesman Bruce Smith said.
Two of the 13 professors, who currently teach office information systems courses, most likely will be offered positions as business professors, according to Smith.
In a separate cost-cutting measure, the board voted to discontinue 13 academic administrative positions. Most of the administrators, who serve in departments throughout the college, will be reassigned to the classroom, Smith said.
SMC board members voted in February to do away with 250 spring semester courses, lay-off 16 part-time counselors and most of the school’s temporary workers.
Smith said selections for the cutbacks were based on a variety of factors, with the final decision resting on the low number of students who were enrolled in the various programs.
“It ain’t fun. I just can’t emphasize how much the board agonized over this. It’s been a traumatic experience.” — — HERB RONEY SMC Board of Trustees chairman
Jenny Ortega, who fled an abusive relationship in Boston to study interior design at SMC, said she doesn’t understand why the college cut her program.
Ortega, who has a 6-year-old son, said her design classes were always full, with additional students clamoring to sign up.
Ortega, who takes three buses to SMC from an apartment she rents in Inglewood, said she specifically chose SMC because it offered an Associate’s degree in design.
She said it took her a long time to apply and be approved for the grants and loans she needed to attend college. Now, the board’s latest decision has left her in a tough spot.
“I already had my life planned out for the next three years,” Ortega said about her courses and bills, as well as her son’s day-care and schooling. “Now I feel like it’s the second time that I don’t have any stability.”
SMC board chairman Herb Roney said he hopes to salvage some programs and positions before the cuts are finalized in 60 days. “Life isn’t very good right now,” Roney said. “It’s been extremely painful. I just hope the entire SMC family will collaborate on ways we can increase revenue and curtail spending and salvage some of these programs.”
Roney — who encourages people to lobby the legislature on behalf of California’s community colleges — said there is a wide variety of ways to recoup money taken by the state.
He said officials are constantly weighing the trade-offs of renting school property, reducing salaries and giving faculty incentives to retire early. He added that travel and equipment expenditures already have been scaled back.
“It ain’t fun,” he said. “I just can’t emphasize how much the board agonized over this. It’s been a traumatic experience.”
When and if it becomes necessary, Roney said the school is committed to helping students transfer to new schools.
“We want to make sure these students will be given specific counseling,” Roney said. “We will work with them in every way we possibly can, through advisement and counseling.
“The community college really is the open door of the community and it is important to the health and to the progress of this state.”
Gordon Dossett, professor of English at SMC and president of the Academic Senate — an organization made up of faculty — said staff members are looking at every available resource and hope to keep alive as many programs as possible. He added that the Academic Senate also is reaching out to community and college supporters, seeking donations for the school.
“We’ve been advocating that department chairs scrutinize class offerings and see if there are areas where severe cuts can be made for a short period of time,” he said. “The administration has said that there are levels that we should not cut beyond, but with all due respect to them, the people best equipped to make those calls are in the departments.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 12, 2003. Read the original PDF.