College District Budget Proposes Raises for Faculty

Hoping to boost district enrollment, Ventura County Community College administrators have released a tentative budget that includes more money for full- and part-time faculty and for two new programs expected to draw more students to the district.

The $72.2-million budget proposed for the 1996-97 fiscal year, which begins July 1, is 5% higher than last year’s spending plan and provides for the first raises to be given in several years to college managers, teachers and staff.

But a final budget, which will not be adopted until September, is likely to swell by an additional $2.8 million in revenue when the state finalizes its own budget, said Chancellor Philip Westin.

The district’s new rosy outlook--it spent the past eight years on a state watch list as a district in financial trouble--is the result of an anticipated increase in state tax allocations that for the first time in years is not expected to fall short of projections.

“The bottom line,” said Westin, “is that the recession is over, tax dollars are up and that [by law] community colleges get about 10% of it.”

The boost in funding is expected to allow the district to expand course offerings, reopen satellite campuses from Ojai to Newbury Park, and launch a new dental hygiene program at Oxnard College. About $77,800 is budgeted for a coordinator of the program.

In addition, the district is counting on an international student recruitment drive to attract at least 100 new foreign students, who pay as much as 10 times the tuition as California residents. The program is expected to pay for itself, said Westin.

In addition, the extra state funding includes about $500,000 to be used for part-time instructors to teach new courses.

Recent increases in enrollment have further improved the district’s outlook. In January, Westin told the community college trustees that the district stood to loose $2.1 million if they did not restore enrollment by the equivalent of 1,550 full-time students.

That goal has been met, in part by the elimination in January of a $50-per-unit tuition fee for students with bachelor’s degrees and by adding a new summer session.

To ensure that the student count does not slip, some of this summer’s enrollment increase will be applied to next year’s enrollment figures, Westin said. But the proposed budget still depends on the district attracting the equivalent of 200 additional full-time students, he said.

“If we don’t get the 200 new students, we won’t realize about $540,000” in state funds, he said.

Many faculty members applauded the proposed budget, which includes funds not only for their first raises in at least five years--approved this spring--but a built-in pay increase of at least 3.45% for next year.

The cost-of-living allowance would be the second that community college employees have received from the state in six years and will likely be increased based on the governor’s revised budget, Westin said.

For the first time, the district is using a formula that directly ties raises and cost-of-living allowances to state revenues for its unionized faculty, eliminating bitter negotiations later.

“It is the first time we have budgeted things like this,” said Deborah Ventura, president of the Academic Senate for Ventura College. “It makes it a lot more upfront.”

But some nonteaching employees were angry that the proposed 1996-97 budget does not include raises for them or money to implement a job classification study completed last year. That study reviewed and revised work responsibilities for the district’s nonteaching staff.

“One thing they don’t have in the budget is a raise for nonfaculty members,” said Cheryl Herrmann, an instructional lab technician and part-time math teacher. “I think it shows a lack of respect for the employees.”

But Westin said that a raise for staff cannot be budgeted because the district is bound by their union contract to negotiate pay increases.

“It doesn’t mean that we can’t grant them a raise,” he said. “It just means that we don’t have any agreement and we have to go through bargaining.”

The Ventura County Community College District trustees are scheduled to vote on the proposed budget in a special meeting Wednesday. The budget session will be held at district headquarters, 71 Day Road, Ventura, at 8:30 p.m.