By Mitra Moassessi

I would like to extend a special welcome to all of our newly hired faculty.  This year we are welcoming ten new full-time faculty and 63 new part-time faculty to our campus while saying goodbye to ten full-time faculty and 71 part-time faculty.

We have started the new academic year with no budget from the state and no hope for a deal on the budget anytime soon. With a two-thirds vote required to pass the budget, the governor insisting that no net increase in taxes are acceptable and demanding a "pension reform" in the budget, there are talks of holding off on the budget until after the November election or even until the next governor is in office.  Unfortunately, as long as there is no budget, the state will continue missing payments to the community colleges, forcing many of them to borrow money to pay for their day to day expenses.

In a press conference on August 27, the California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott stated “delay in the California budget has resulted in a blockage of all state payments to the community colleges, including $116 million that was due in July and $277 million due in August. Deep budget cuts and more than $1 billion in funding deferrals have left the colleges vulnerable. The state’s September payment, scheduled to go out on September 28, is one of the largest payments of the year at nearly $450 million. If this payment is missed, it will bring the cumulative funding delay to $840 million, or roughly 15 percent of districts’ total annual funding. As a direct result of the delayed and deferred payments,  community  colleges have been forced to borrow money at a system-wide cost in excess of five million dollars. This is money that the colleges could be using to educate students.”

Think about all the classes that can be offered with five million dollars.  In addition to the fact that students are being hurt by all the cuts and budget delays, so many part-time faculty throughout the state are losing their jobs and in many cases their health benefits.  Part-time faculty have become the silent victims of the California budget mess.

It currently seems to be popular to attack education and educators. With the Los Angeles Times recently publishing the name of 6000 Los Angeles Unified School District teachers with their “value-added” rating, the recent (fortunately unsuccessful) attempt by Senator Liu to connect funding for community colleges to the rate of degree completion, and the ongoing attack on California public employees’ pension, 2010-11 promises to be a year of many challenges.  All of us must stay informed and be willing to take action.  You can begin by writing  a letter to the editor of any publication that publishes an attack on any public employee.

Is there any good news?

Here at Santa Monica College, we finished the 2009-10 academic year with an unrestricted general fund balance of $18.5 million, giving us an unrestricted fund balance ratio to total expenses of 13.96%, well above the Chancellor’s office recommended ratio of 5%.  While the adopted budget for 2009-10 predicted an operating deficit of $1.8 million for 2009-10, we ended 2009-10 with an actual operating surplus of $1.1 million.  The plan to hire the five full-time faculty who were not hired in 2009-10 and the fifteen that were promised to be hired for 2010-11 is still in place. As a matter of fact, the adopted budget for 2010-11 includes transferring $413,168 to the designated reserve for hiring new faculty.
     
Welcome back!