DVC’s Budget Committee will meet again Friday to discuss recommendations for a 15 percent reduction in college managers, non-teaching staff and operating budgets to eliminate $4 million in “red ink” for the 2010-11 school year.
Although the projected deficit is $5.2 million, classes were already chopped from next year’s schedule for a savings of $1.2 million.
“We must downsize,” DVC President Judy Walters told committee members at the Feb. 26 meeting.
The college rallied to fight its “show cause” finding by the Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges and now must do the same for the budget problems, Walters said.
The Budget Committee includes managers, faculty, staff and students. It is part of a new, multi-committee structure formed in response to the Commission’s recommendations and chaired by Chris Leivas, vice president of finance and administration, and biology professor Ray Goralka. It will report its recommendations to Walters and the College
Council, which will make the final decisions.
Although the committee members received five documents covering different areas of the budget and proposed reduction information on Feb. 26 meeting, Leivas said two of them needed re-working because of typographical and numerical errors.
Emphasizing that the numbers being worked with are estimates, he focused on setting reduction goals to offset the $4 million deficit.
A 15 percent cut to the $6.1 million DVC spends on 38 management positions – eight of which are currently vacant – would be the equivalent of eliminating 8.2 full-time jobs for a savings of $920,193, according to the report Leivas presented.
Similarly, a 15 percent cut in the $15.6 million spent on 202 non-teaching employees, or “classified staff,” would be the equivalent of eliminating 30.29 full-time positions for a savings of $2.3 million. Currently, about 19 positions are vacant, according to the report.
“I think a lot of service that were barely staffed before will be gone,” said Jocelyn Iannucci, president of the
Classified Senate, in a later interview. “We are going to lose some students because we’re not going to provide the services they need.”
A 15 percent cut of DVC’s $4.9 million operating budget would amount to a savings of $734,282, the report said.
The report also stated the college could further save money by reducing its $28.7 million expenditure for full-time faculty by the eliminating vacant positions and/or the eliminating faculty release positions funded out of the general operating budget.”
It also said DVC’s $15.3 million for part-time faculty could be further reduced by cutting more than the 5 percent already taken from next year’s course schedule and increasing “productivity,” which means boosting the number of students per teacher.
Leivas told the committee a new district rule requires DVC to have a back-up reserve that is 1 percent of its budget. That reserve will come from any funds carried over from 2009-10, he said.
Contact Julius Rea at [email protected]
