Conrad Scott-Curtis
Talk about the Budget
The conversation around the budget at Cabrillo is changing. Before the last two Board of Governors’ meetings, the Board engaged in budget study sessions with representatives of the District, representatives of CCFT, and members of the college community and the public. Several board members are clearly engaged in understanding different points of view about the budget and budget priorities.
Faculty Senate has succeeded in their call that money designated by the legislature to support faculty, either through F/T hires or otherwise, be spent as the legislature intended. Last year, the California legislature designated money to be spent for colleges to hire contract faculty, and Cabrillo received about $580,00 in these funds. The legislature required that the money be used for schools to reach their Faculty Obligation Number (FON). For schools already at their FON, the legislature included clear language of intent, but not requirement, that the money be spent to support faculty. At first, the Cabrillo District seemed to want to take advantage of the difference between legislative requirement and legislative intent and designate the money as undifferentiated funds within the college’s general fund. Faculty Senate called repeatedly for this money be spent to support faculty as the legislature intended, and the District has responded positively.
CCFT was able to point out that District budget-planning parameters included an error in STRS-payment requirements, and also that it was reasonable to be less conservative in forecasting revenue. The result was a $10 million dollar difference in budget deficits forecast five years out.
In each of these instances, public conversation has made the difference: conversation among CCFT, Faculty Senate, the Board, and the District. Not least, the discussion has been affected by conversation among the faculty members. None of the developments outlined above came without effort on all our parts, and to see continued change in the budget culture at Cabrillo, we in the faculty must continue to speak up and to foster widespread understanding of the budget.
Clarification from the Chancellor’s Office Regarding SSSP and Student Equity Funds
We have been part of conversations at the college recently where the reliability of SSSP and Student Equity Funds have been at issue. The question has been whether we can count on continuation of these funds as we plan hiring and budgets into the future. Our college has not been alone raising this question, and Deputy Chancellor Erik Skinner recently offered CFT a clarification about SSSP and Student Equity funds, describing them as part of base budget now and for the future:
“SSSP and Equity funds allow our colleges considerable latitude to craft local strategies and programs to promote student success and close achievement gaps. As you continue to implement those strategies, it is imperative that you leverage these funds to create permanent, institutionalized change. That is the reason that state leaders have given us these funds and it is only through lasting change that our students will sustain improvement in their success. These funds are now considered part of our base funding by both the Chancellor’s Office and state leaders, so you should allocate them with confidence that they will reoccur and use the funds to make permanent improvements in how your college improves student success. When we face another recession, which we will at some point, our system must commit to treating SSSP and Student Equity as base funding, and spread any necessary budget reductions across general apportionment funding as well. While this is a departure from past practice, it is the only way we will sustain the strides you are making in student success through good budgets and bad. We have entered a new era as a system and we cannot turn back.”
Cabrillo can and should rely on these funds as we design the future of our institution.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!
See you at the CCFT Flex meeting in January, where we will hear Jonathan Lightman, Executive Director of the Faculty Association for California Community Colleges (FACCC), on current advocacy for quality public education, including faculty needs.