The budget recommendations presented to the Chancellor’s Cabinet on Monday by the Budget Advisory task force detail various ways that the State Center Community College District can reduce its costs and bolster non-tax revenues during the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

The advisory task force’s multi-pronged approach lists 21 different recommendations to attack the district’s ongoing budget woes.

At the top of the list of recommendations is that the district maintains a 1.5 to 2 percent above the full-time equivalent student (FTES) cap. The FTES calculation is the metric by which the State of California apportions funds to various school districts, from K-12 to the University of California system.

Fresno City College had its share of problems with FTES during 2011-2012 academic year, involving using an outdated equation to account for full-time
equivalents, yielding a shortfall of state funding from what had been budgeted last July. In response, the college added a slate of 12-week classes to make up the difference.

The task force also recommended a few changes not likely to go over well with students, such as charging them for course schedules, ensuring that they pay for district wide course catalogs and increasing parking fees and fines over time.

Another recommendation is to evaluate the consultants hired by SCCCD and see if the district can use some of its own staffers to do the work that is generally farmed
out to pricey consultants.

A number of recommendations focused on the operations and maintenance of the district’s various campuses and centers. Aside from wanting to move more lottery
funding into the operations budget, the task force recommended that facilities fees should cover all costs and the maintenance of those facilities.

A large recommendation was reserved for the district’s planned Southeast Center in southeast Fresno. The task force recommended that the district review the current needs of the area and possible alternatives that would use the center’s large funding for the district’s existing centers and campuses.

The construction of the new center is being funded by a bond issue which has raised $30 million for district. SCCCD is also receiving matching funds from the state of California up to $45 million. The concern is focused on whether another bond issue will be available in the future to fund the construction of the Southeast Center.

Other recommendations of the task force include:

• Move paper forms online and implement online processes.
• Look at selling some of the district’s properties.
• Continue to hold Fresno City College’s graduation at Selland Arena, but increase advertising as a method of increasing revenue.
• In reviewing the job vacancies, human resources departments need to consider campus and district needs along with the needs of Willow International and whether it is still efficient.
• Justify the need and budget availability for each student hourly position.
• Does the district need to reduce the number of athletic teams, size of the teams or number of coaches?
• Hold summer school from 7 am to 3:30 pm, Monday to Friday between May 21 and July 27 to conserve energy.

Christopher Coronado, Fresno City College’s student trustee and a member of the task force, said that the recommendations are not the position of the district and that, while all constituency groups were represented on the task force, the recommendations were not unanimous, but all received a majority of support.

“I wanted to address administrative pay,” Coronado said. “Hopefully they would endure cuts, so that way it [the cuts] would be equitable among all constituency.”

Coronado said that he was surprised that a recommendation for administrative pay cuts didn’t make the list, but a cut on student hourly positions was recommended.

With these preliminary recommendations submitted to the Chancellor’s Cabinet, Coronado said the final budget recommendations will be presented to the Board of Trustees during its retreat in Fresno next week.