Community Colleges Face Cutbacks

A funding crisis has hit all but one of the nine campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District, which has been mired in financial problems for years because of declining enrollment and shrinking state subsidies.

Most of the eight campuses affected are facing what officials described as belt-tightening, with cuts representing about 10% of their budgets. But for Mission College in Sylmar the cuts are particularly deep and wide-ranging.

Forced to cut $2 million from an already strained budget, Mission plans to eliminate almost 200 classes, cancel its athletic program, limit hours at its new library and cut its citizenship program when school resumes next month.

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The school, one of the district’s smallest and newest campuses, has been especially hard hit because its growth has consistently exceeded budget projections, forcing it to run at a deficit each year.

This year, the district’s Board of Trustees decided that the deficit must finally be made up. At Mission, it will mean scaling back operations 21%.

“When a school is in a growth mode, as Mission has been, it’s at a severe disadvantage,” Mission College President William Norlund said Tuesday.

Under the district’s funding formula, he said, each campus receives money based on its average spending over previous years--an inadequate sum when expansion is rapid. So the district loaned Mission College and others in its system enough money from its reserve fund to meet their expenses.

“But that reduced the district’s reserves to an extremely dangerous level, consequently we’re no longer able to do that,” Norlund said.

In fact, the district was warned by state officials last year to boost its financial reserves, which had been seriously depleted by the need to bail out struggling campuses. Mission must refund the district $800,000 this year.

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A Mission College campus committee--including administrators, faculty members and support staff--met this month to calculate what could be cut and found few choices. The panel expects to make its final decision next week.

The cuts will undoubtedly affect the school’s profile in the northeast San Fernando Valley where residents long lobbied for its creation and expansion and heartily celebrated the opening of its $12-million high-tech library center this year.

“The cuts amount to suicide,” said professor Chuck Dirks, the school’s faculty president. The new library “is the dream of the community. Half of our students go to class at night, so for the library and the resource center to be open then is critical.”

Only East Los Angeles College, a large campus that did not exceed its budget, will remain unscathed.

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Pierce College in Woodland Hills is in the same situation as Mission College, “but not as bad,” said campus President E. Bing Innocencio. The school has about 14,000 students--almost four times as many as Mission.

Pierce will have to cut about $2.5 million this year, but its budget exceeds $23 million, giving it more room to maneuver for reductions.

Jim Heinselman, president of Harbor College in Wilmington, said he still hopes that the state will increase his school’s funding this summer. But if the current allocations stand, Harbor will have about $1 million less to spend for the upcoming academic year.

The school anticipates a 5% increase in enrollment and the elimination of about 30 courses and about 20 fewer temporary faculty members, Heinselman said.

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At Southwest College, Vice President of Academic Affairs Janice Hollis said the school is perpetually trimming its $9-million budget, so this year’s cuts will not be that painful.

The school--a small campus like Mission--plans to cut about 45 classes, trim faculty leave time and condense the academic schedule so students will spend less time on campus.

“It’s a routine thing for Southwest College,” Hollis said of the cuts. “We’ve been pretty lean.”

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.