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[From the March, 2009 Community College Perspective]
This year’s “low budget” remake of a classic old movie seems to rerun every year. A tornado of an economy has tossed businesses, credit markets, jobs, and houses into the air, and we have landed in the budgetary Land of Oz. The crops have been pulled out by the roots, resulting in a loss of revenue to the state; lollipop land has become pop landfill; and the state employee Munchkins are being kicked in the rear by Wizard Schwarzenegger.
Wizard Schwarzenegger is full of ego and bluster, but the only person standing between the Wizard’s kick and the Munchkins is the Courageous Lion of a State Controller John Chiang. He has single handedly prevented Wizard Schwarzenegger from paying state employees at the minimum wage rate and fought to prevent him from unilaterally forcing Munchkin furloughs.
Mike Villines, the supreme evil witch of the “No Tax” Republicans, has his usual allies to block any budget progress, especially the heartless Republican Tin Men who wield the hatchet to cut state employees, unions, public education, and public service programs that are so critical for the social needs of our community. The Howard Jarvis flying monkeys doggedly fight against taxes like they are the last banana on earth. The Scarecrow Democrats seem to have completely run out of ideas to solve the budget deficit. With a backbone made of straw, they cave in to the Republicans every year, even though they are the majority. Who is going to lead us out of this bad budget movie? Toto the guide dog? Dorothy, click your heels three times! Click…click….click. Damn, we’re still in Oz.
The movie’s not over
Now that the budget has passed I want to thank all of the CFT members who relentlessly lobbied the Governor and Legislature by making visits to your legislators and responding to our email action alerts. In this budget deficit climate, the results could have been much worse. However, this budget fight is not over. It is only another dramatic scene in a long movie and we must fight even harder for our students.
For the current year budget year of 2008-09 we have lost our 0.68% COLA of nearly $40 million, which makes us $325 million short of funding the 5.6% statutory COLA. In addition, all of our districts will be forced to deal with deferred January-April apportionments of $340 million until July in the next fiscal year, along with $200 million in deferred June and July apportionments until October. All of the apportionment deferrals will now become a permanent change in funding. The financial burden for districts to annually manage over half a billion dollars in deferred payments will be extremely difficult and costly in these restricted credit market times.
For the 2009-10 budget year community colleges have again lost the 0.68% COLA of $40 million proposed previously. Enrollment growth was funded at 3% for $185.4 million, but this does not come close to funding the current enrollment growth in community colleges and makes the current situation of 100,000 unfunded students even worse.
Silver linings
While the community college cuts are significant and will not allow us to meet the educational needs of our students, it is important to point out that many budget threats made by the LAO and Department of Finance were defeated. For example: no student fees increases, no “flexibility” raid of categorical funds, and physical education classes protected from being funded at the noncredit rate. In addition, the competitive CalGrant Program is funded, and the Governor appears willing to work on the property tax backfill.
As the economy continues to slide downward, a new round of budget cuts will most likely occur at the May Revise, scheduled on May 25th. And if the Budget Initiatives do not pass the electorate on May 19th, legislators might look for additional cuts to education.
While the budget looks merely difficult for community colleges in the short term, it will be critical to evaluate what the Spending Cap measure will do to Proposition 98 and other social and health services programs in the long term. Such a Cap may virtually guarantee that Prop 98 will never rise above its absolute formulaic minimum growth. At the same time, however, as state education funding in the Prop 98 formula continues to grow, the hard spending cap means there will be less in the budget for all of the other service programs in the state. This will be an impossible situation as long as we have the 2/3 voting requirement to pass the budget and raise necessary revenues.
Who knows where will be in five years? Only time will tell, but it will be a harrowing ride on the yellow brick road.
By Dean Murakami, Los Rios Community College Federation, Local 2279 |
