CCEU Report

Hi! Let me introduce myself. My name is Laurie Osmer, and I work in the Business Office. I have worked at Cabrillo for a little over four years. I am privileged to have recently been elected to the CCEU Board of Directors.

One of the buzzwords that I have been hearing a lot lately is ‘rightsizing.’ What an interesting concept! I have talked to a number of people who have been trying to pin down when it was first heard around campus – to be sure, it’s been around since before the cuts of the last few years.

To Administration, right sizing means keeping costs on a par with student enrollments/FTES. To Classified, right sizing means fewer people to do the same amount of work. Whether our FTES go up or down, there are still utility bills to pay and payroll to process, as well as all the other monthly services that are taken for granted. No matter the student headcount, there is still a budget to map out for the coming year, line-by-line and dollar-by-dollar. Our college needs Enrollment Services whether enrollment goes up or down. Our landscape maintenance men and women do not have less grass to cut if there are fewer students. In our recent down times, administrators’ ranks did not noticeably diminish. That cannot be said about the classified workers. And I might also include the increase in adjunct faculty because Cabrillo is not offering full time faculty employment.

The amazing thing to me is that this new/old buzzword is coming up now, just as our negotiating teams are readying themselves for upcoming labor negotiations. Do we see through this? Yes, we do.  We must remember that the good of our college is also the good of its employees and faculty. We need to keep this in mind as we make our furious dash to the end of this school year.

by Laurie Osmer