Without a State Budget passed, Fresno City College is struggling to pay its bills. According to Douglas Brinkley, the State Center Community College District Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration, it is critical to FCC as well as community colleges statewide that a budget be passed before the end of September.
“We have to keep the doors open for students, and the state revenue represents a large portion of our revenue. That’s the dilemma we’re in, is how long we can continue to pay bills; and some districts are borrowing. When we hit September we’ll have to see,” said Brinkley.
According to Brinkley, the college has been forced to tap into financial reserves to continue operating, but those reserves will only last FCC until the end of September without the college having to make significant changes. “Our big payroll is not due until the end of September, and the legislatures know this, I guess, unless they know something I don’t know,” said Brinkley.
The California State Budget is to be passed by the State Legislature on June 15, and signed into law by the governor on June 30.
Unfortunately for programs and institutions reliant on state funding, the 2008-09 State Budget has still not been passed. On Sunday, California lawmakers surpassed the modern-day record for a late budget set on August 31, 2002, a full two months after the start of a new fiscal year.
It should be noted that it is not unusual for the budget to be passed late; the budget has often been passed between July and early August. But as the budget stalemate approaches a third month, the adjustments state-funded institutions have to make in order to keep operational grow increasingly drastic.
The Director of Financial Aid, Frank Ramon, said that the budget stalemate only affects state money, which is generally supplementary to other grants (i.e. federal). He added that he is not aware of anyone who has been unable to attend school as a result of the budget impasse. However, he said, “[the budget impasse] is a serious thing.”
Anne Watts, Director of the CalWORKs program, struggles to balance out serving students without having an official budget. “We will receive our funding, it’s just that we don’t know, at this point, at what level we are going to receive that funding,” said Watts.
Fresno City College’s CalWORKs program helped around 800 students last year who were then mainstreamed into FCC’s Vocational Training Programs. The benefits included aid in areas such as financial assistance, childcare, transportation, ancillary funds, enrollment fees, student book accounts and supplies.
But those benefits fluctuate yearly as funding increases or decreases. “One of the things I do is I look at what are our processes are looking like, what are we doing now, have I allocated resources effectively across the program,” said Watts.
With the State Legislature in a budget stalemate, Watts has been forced to plan for a number of different outcomes. Scenarios that have been planned for include working with last year’s budget, having to operate with a 10 per cent cut, or a possible but unlikely 20 per cent cut, all of which depend on the Legislature’s final product.
“We’re operating under a continuing resolution, and we anticipate that we will serve at least as many students [as last year] because we have a lot more students this year that need services, so it’s our job to figure out how to serve more students at the same or maybe less levels,” said Watts.
Dr. Lee Farley, Director of Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOP&S) said that his budget is comprised of primarily state funds, with about one third coming from district matching funds.
According to Farley, “What we can count on is 95 per cent of last year’s budget, so that’s the way we start to do our projections for this year.”
“The longer this budget stalemate goes on, the more complicated it becomes,” said Farley, “it just makes it kind of a nervous time for everybody when you don’t really know what to expect.”
FCC’s EOP&S program served about 2,100 students last year, and this year Farley hopes to serve about the same amount of students. EOP&S students must qualify for the Board of Governor’s fee waiver (free tuition) and enroll as full-time students, maintaining a minimum of eight units per semester.
EOP&S assists students with support services, EOP&S Grants, book vouchers, academic counseling, tutorial services, and provides C.A.R.E. (Child Care Assistance for Single Parents on TANF).
The California Code of Regulations specifically states that a community college district’s Final Budget must be adopted before September 15.
If the Legislature fails to adopt a State Budget before then, SCCCD will be forced to adopt a budget based on the governor’s May Revise (the best, most-current evaluation of what the Final Budget will look like) that involves cuts in many areas ranging from about three to 10 per cent.
