by Lantz Simpson

SMC's budget outlook for the next few years is looking brighter than ever, despite the efforts of the perpetual spinners of doom to claim otherwise. Since the arrival of Dr. Tsang, the budget has made a major turn-around. Consider the numerous positive developments over the last eighteen months.

• There is a record college reserve (ending balance) as of June 30 for fiscal year 2007 of $15 million plus.

• The one-time funding received in FY 2007 of $9.2 million pushed the reserve to the new record.

• The alleged “structural deficit” has disappeared. The college actually had a $1.9 million operating surplus for FY 2007.

• The Community College Initiative on the February 2008 ballot has over 60% support according to recent polls. Despite some CTA grumbling, there is no organized opposition. Passage of the CCI means $62 million new dollars for the college over the next five years as well as a three year stabilization window for the college to have forgiveness of its FTES borrowing. The new CCI dollars would far offset any future funding reductions from lower FTES three years out.

What's more good news is that the college Budget Committee has been receiving more accurate numbers thanks to better projection models from Fiscal Services Director Chris Bonvenuto. In addition, the committee has a group working on establishing college benchmarks in such areas as ratios of faculty/students, faculty/administrators, classified staff/classified managers, and cost per thousand of advertising. Furthermore, the committee has made recommendations on budget efficiencies based upon an employee survey last spring.

Despite all this good news, the doom spinners still told the Board in May 2007 that the college has a $1.5 million operating deficit. Therefore, their logic goes, the employees should accept a paltry raise with no gains toward part-time parity while other desperate needs of the college should also go unmet. Once again, the trustees were presented with an “edge of the cliff” scenario. How many times have the doom spinners been accurate in their predictions over these last eighteen months? Have we plunged over the cliff yet? Consider the following history:

• At the March 2006 Board retreat, trustees were given a budget scenario showing that the college reserve would be a negative $3.1 million for FY 2008!

• In April 2006 the doomsday scenario was revised to a $1.7 million reserve for 2007 and a negative reserve of $2.1 million for 2008.

• The Board and the Academic Senate were told in September 2006 that the college had a $3.5 million operating deficit.

• Also in September the college's annual master plan report bragged that for the third year in a row the college's reserve fund exceeded 5% and that FY 2007's projected balance would be 5.7% (about $6 million).

• In January 2007 the projected FY 2007 ending reserve suddenly jumped to $9 million. Yet, this prediction was still off by $6 million!

• In March, the projected reserve was going to be $11.3 million. This was only off by almost $4 million!

• Last spring, the Corsair ran an article warning about $3.5 million in upcoming budget cuts, which never materialized!

The lesson learned from looking at this history is that the cliff is constantly moving! Do the doom spinners still have any credibility?

The excellent budget outlook means that the college now has the funds to address a number of neglected areas over the last five years. Among the areas that need immediate attention:

• Employees have not received state COLA since 2002.

• No progress has been made towards part-time faculty parity pay since the 2001 categorical state budget augmentation.

• Back-sliding on full time faculty hiring continues as the number of full time faculty has declined by more than thirty over the last five years.

• The number of teaching hours by part-time faculty is now more than half of all hours taught and continues to increase.

• There has been no return of the vocational programs wiped out in 2003 and no significant new programs added.

• More than fifty classified staff positions remain unfilled with acute shortages of staff in human resources, fiscal services, and maintenance.

Yes, the budget news is the best in years. It's time for the trustees and administration to let go of the old game of phony budget projections, doom spinning and fear mongering. It's time for Santa Monica College to move confidently into the future with a solid budget and projections based upon reality.