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Schools

Final Cabrillo Budget Proposal Leaves Some Unsatisfied

The proposed changes could have a lasting impact on the school.

The moving target that was the 2011-12 Cabrillo College budget deficit was finally hit with a stun gun at the College Planning Council meeting Wednesday. The budget signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown at the start of July is forcing the school to cut and replace $5.2 million this year, and more cuts are likely to happen by January.

The state is allowing the school to put off $1 million in further reductions until FY 2012-13, but that still leaves Cabrillo with a $4.2 million hole. The school is solving this problem by cutting $827,000 in operating expense and dowsing the rest of the problem with $3.4 million from reserve funds.

“We are using some of our reserves for the deficit for the current year,” said Victoria Lewis, vice president of administrative services. “But after we have made the reductions, we still have a permanent deficit of $3.4 million.”

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The school has $5.06 million in operating reserves, which means it is throwing two-thirds of the fund at budget problems this year. The reserve was built up during a four-year spending freeze, which began when the school reached a peak budget of $60 million, to prepare for a situation like it faces now. However, an identical deficit is projected for 2012-13, with an estimated $6.4 million hole down the road in 2013-14.

Cabrillo will have to deal with the $1 million debt it is sweeping under the rug this year, as well as $2 million in costs increases, bringing the total deficit to $6.4 million. In 2013-14, projections show the revenue shortfall itself growing to $6.4 million, along with the same spike in costs. The school would then face the task of cutting $8.4 million.

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This has some planning council members questioning whether the downward spiral will ever end and what effect cuts made now will have on the soul of the school years down the road.

The state of California still has a $3 billion deficit this year. Lewis predicted that hole will likely never be filled, because she doubts that funds the state has projected to fill this gap will ever materialize.

“So we are carrying over a $3.4 million permanent deficit. ... That is our portion of that $3 billion,” Lewis said.

Director of Marketing and Communications Kristin Fabos suggested that identifying reductions with the precision the council has this summer may not be the best way to serve the school. She said the school ran functionally as a $54 million school, and with an enrollment cap it could work again.

“This could be death by a thousand paper cuts,” said Fabos. “Instead of just lopping off a thumb and a finger here and there, we may want to [address the issue] with a more visionary approach.”

During this summer's deficit wrangling, President Brian King put a great deal of focus on a CISCO training session that schooled the council on how to run a business more efficiently. Although Dan Rothwell, who teaches Argument and Persuasion, said the lessons were useful for the current situation, the philosophy it preached runs counter to what a community college is supposed to be. He said the recent trend to attempt to keep programs running at skeletal staffing levels is not the direction that a public city college should be headed.

The school recently reinstated Chinese classes after obtaining private funding from the Watsonville-Santa Cruz Japanese American Citizens League and local benefactor George Ow Jr. 

The $56 million budget presented Wednesday will go to the Board of Trustees on Aug. 1 for a final vote at Cabrillo's Watsonville campus at 6 p.m.

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