Budget Crunch for Colleges

As we enter the back-to-school season, Orange County’s community colleges are reeling from the news we recently received--that this year’s state budget included dramatic cuts in our funding.

When legislators in Sacramento finally agreed in July on a state spending plan for 2001-02, we knew we would have to do more with less. But Gov. Gray Davis vetoed $126 million more from community colleges, including scheduled maintenance and instructional equipment funds. Community colleges in Orange County and throughout the state were stunned. That $126 million represented 23% of all the governor’s cuts.

The most significant reduction is the nearly $100 million for scheduled maintenance and instructional materials, $3 million of which would have been allocated to Coast Community College District colleges--Coastline Community College, Golden West College and Orange Coast College. Those funds would have been used for building maintenance, energy conservation programs, projects aimed at protecting the health and safety of students, and upgrades for computers and other technology we use to train the high-tech workers Orange County’s economy demands.

The single largest category of scheduled maintenance for 2001-02 was energy-efficiency projects, including replacing aging boilers, drafty roofs and other air circulation, heating and cooling projects. For example, Golden West College in Huntington Beach lost funds to implement the final phase of an energy management system that would have reduced energy costs by a full 30% this year.

Without it, utility bills will increase by $400,000 per year. Without projects such as these, our district will be less energy-efficient, requiring more energy from the state’s overtaxed grid, and spending more money on energy that should be spent on instructional and support services for students.

Other scheduled projects that will now not receive their state matching funds include replacing a leaky 29-year-old roof on the health center at Golden West College; replacing Coastline Community College Center’s aging boiler; and replacing a 50-year-old storm drain system at Orange Coast College that is already in a state of collapse in some places.

The Coast Community College District also lost nearly $1.4 million for instructional equipment, funds used to buy equipment used in student instruction. Our colleges planned to put that money toward computer lab improvements and equipment, science lab improvements and equipment, software, library books, musical equipment and athletic equipment.

In the face of cuts like these, California’s community college system, including the Coast Community College District, is facing the largest student enrollment increase in all of higher education.

It is also a travesty that we received the smallest budget increase of the state’s three state-run institutions this year. This included cost-of-living adjustments for faculty and staff, and funding for new students. Everything from the state is earmarked for something, and so this small, 3.2% increase is separate from the cuts, which are in other areas. The increase in community college system funding was below both the University of California at 4.8% and the California State University systems at 6.4%.

Over the last decade, California’s community colleges have become experts at serving the largest segment of the state’s higher-education students with the fewest resources.

Thanks to chronic underfunding, we’ve had lots of practice. Because we have never received our full allotment of funding from Proposition 98, community colleges have had to do without a cumulative $2.7 billion allocated to us by the voters of this state in 1988.

The Coast Community College District is feeling the budget squeeze even more because of an unfair state funding formula that gives us one of the lowest allocations in the state, despite our area’s high cost of living and burgeoning economy.

Meanwhile, we continue to face the challenges of providing educational opportunities at an affordable price to an influx of new students. The students who make up the so-called Tidal Wave II, children of baby boomers, are now graduating from high school and heading to community colleges in droves--creating the largest student enrollment increase in all of higher education.

Community colleges will be scrambling for some relief from the governor’s Draconian budget cuts this fall. Meanwhile, rest assured that the Coast Community College District will continue to do what it does best--provide more opportunities for more students with fewer resources. But how long can we continue to do so?