President's Report: Governor's May Revise

Last week, the governor’s May revised budget was released. As hoped, there was plenty of good news. Several questionable trial-balloons were deflated. The proposal to merge all adult education into community colleges was eliminated and replaced with money to study the problem and do some pilot programs. The proposal to move to outcome funding as opposed to (or partially in place of) enrollment funding (fund FTES) is dead, at least for the moment.

Revenue projections were raised, so spending was increased commensurately. The main educational increase was to support the governor’s plan to alter the funding of grades K-12. The thrust of the plan is to increase money to economically disadvantaged districts. It would have been nice to see the spending increase reflect the traditional split between K-12 and community colleges, but we could be well served by the K-12 spending. The under-preparedness of our students is the biggest educational problem we face.

In the governor’s January budget proposal, spending to community colleges was increased by about 4%. The odd aspect of that spending was that the money was specifically not allocated. The breakdown would be left to the community college system and chancellor. In the May-revise, along with a small increase, an allocation was included. The proposal includes 1.5% cost of living adjustment (COLA); funding student success (something of a restoration of the reduced matriculation funding, though the details are not currently known); and restoration of workload reduction (the decrease in the number of students the state would fund).

One change coming our way may not be apparent to faculty in instruction.

by Paul Harvell

 

 

It would have been nice to see the spending increase reflect the traditional split between K-12 and community colleges, but we could be well served by the K-12 spending. The under-preparedness of our students is the biggest educational problem we face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The state is moving to a pay-for-services model in matriculation. In the past, matriculation funding was meted out to colleges based on FTES. If you had more students, you got more matriculation money. Now the state wants to tie the funding to actual services provided, sort of like what the federal government does for Medicare. The college will now have to report what services have been provided: how many education plans were written or how many students were provided with orientation. We file what we’ve done, and then the state pays for services provided.

As to restoration of the workload reduction, all colleges will have a chance to grab additional revenue if they can increase the number of students served. This raises a difficult question for Cabrillo. How many students can we serve? Right now, the tentative answer is “more than we are right now,” so additional TUs are being allocated to summer and next year. How many students we actually capture is still an open question. Enrollment this semester and this year has been soft. No doubt, we served many more students several years ago, but there are some demographics working against us.

What is the right size of Cabrillo? A decade ago, Cabrillo accepted a reduction in funding because we couldn’t sustain our level of funded FTES even though we were working hard to attract students. A few years later we were busting at the seams with students as the county witnessed a peak in high school graduation. A downturn in state finances led to workload reduction, so we cut classes. Things have now flipped again. We were squeezing students out a year ago, and now we’re going to try to lure many back. What’s the right number moving forward? I’m glad I’m not in charge of knowing that.