Santa Monica College Budget Meeting Is No Tea Party

Administrators from the Santa Monica Community College District—which includes Malibu—presented what SMC President Chui Tsang called a “very sobering picture” of the district's financial outlook during a town hall Wednesday afternoon at SMC's main campus in Santa Monica.

“The state's budget is in a bad place right now, and it might affect us tremendously,” said Bob Isomoto, SMC's vice president for business and administration.

Isomoto said SMC has a projected operating deficit of $5.7 million for the 2011-12 school year—88 percent designated for expenditures related to staff salaries and benefits; the remainder designated for supplies, contracts, utilities, equipment and insurance. He said the cost of benefits now accounts for 20 percent of SMC's budget—an 8 percent jump—and that the district is faced with having to downsize 1,000 to 3,500 full-time equivalents employees. A hiring freeze was implemented last month.

Isomoto laid out three possible fiscal scenarios. In the best one, the district would slash $290 million from its budget. That scenario could come about if Gov. Jerry Brown's tax-extension effort succeeds; $110 million would have to be raised through school fees and 2,500 students would be affected.

In a worse scenario, the district would face a $510 million reduction. And in the worst-case scenario, fees would need to generate $280 million and class fees would leap to $66 per unit.

The middle scenario is “what's looming … if you're a betting person, this is what's coming up,” Isomoto said. 

Tsang said, “Even if we did nothing next year, we still can survive—but we probably have zero chance of surviving the next two years.”

The president also fielded audience questions. When asked whether 20 retiring faculty members would be replaced, Tsang's comments once again reflected the difficulty SMC is having with planning for the future.

“I have made a commitment that we'll go ahead with filling those 20 positions—given the governor's [tax-extension] proposal is approved,” he said.

Alluding to the district's new buildings and in-the-works construction projects, he said, “We don't want these beautiful facilities to sit empty while these students are going to for-profit colleges, where they don't have any guarantee about the education they're getting.”

A handful of individuals told Tsang they were concerned about the fate of Emeritus College, the SMC program that serves older adults in Malibu and Santa Monica.

"Emeritus is going to be affected as much as SMC is," Tsang said.

SMC administrators are talking with Santa Monica city officials about acquiring financial assistance, Tsang said. But even the best-case scenario would likely see cutbacks in Emeritus' physical education and dance/performance programs.

SMC students will not have the same latitude in enrolling in courses that do not help them achieve their unit requirements. Also, the district is trying to find ways to increase fees for international and out-of-state students. Tsang said the district is trying to find innovative ways to ensure that international students can fulfill the 12-unit threshold required to legally reside in the United States.

A couple of individuals from an organization called the Student Unity Project openly criticized the SMC leadership, saying that administrators were disproportionately paid compared with instructors. After a representative spoke, a member of the audience said factions within SMC should not turn on each other amid the budget debacle.

"We don't want to blame any of this on one group or have the sufferings," he said.

The man thanked Tsang for staging the town hall meeting and improving the dialogue between administrators, faculty and students—despite the grim reality ahead.