College community,

On May 22, I shared information about the 2019-2020 budget with the Board of Trustees. I heard the concerns that faculty and staff expressed at the Board meeting about being transparent regarding the budget. To that end, I want to fully share with you the same information that was provided to the Trustees. 

The budget decisions that have been made were difficult. Many of them directly impact our faculty, staff, administrators and therefore our students. I want you to know that these decisions were made with care and consideration. I understand that you didn’t receive as much information as you would have preferred earlier in the process. It was because we wanted to ensure that the employees directly impacted by budget reductions were informed first. Those employees received official notification today.  

In making these budget decisions, Executive Cabinetoperated with the following objectives and understandings:

• Prioritize our employees and their professionaldevelopment first.
• Sustain our commitments to Guided Pathways andthe Social Equity Plan.
• Be conservative in our projections for studentenrollment and in our estimates for tuition and Running Start reimbursementrevenue.
• Consistent with feedback from the BudgetCommittee, be frugal – don’t commit every dollar.
• Set aside a portion of our anticipated newrevenue for contingency.

Starting from this basis, EC established the followingframework for our budget discussions:

• Leave the 5% reductions in place.  Thesereductions made it possible to not only cover the $1.5 million shortage in nextyear’s must-fund costs but also offset the loss of $800,000 in our base statefunding due to changes in the allocation model.
• Move ahead only with the additional revenue webelieve we have now, and not try to guess what may come later from the state. This new revenue is currently projected at $1,425,489 and is comprisedof:
  • $438,009in unallocated permanent funding made available by the 5% reductions.
  • $987,480from higher-than-expected tuition and Running Start revenue, and fromun-committing the local funding we no longer need to cover 35% of next year’smandatory state wage adjustments.  

Within this framework, EC made the following budgetdecisions:

• Fund the first five requests on the ReallocationList as recommended by the Budget Committee:
  • $37,926for the Veterans Resource Center Manager
  • $63,043for the Instructional Accessibility Tech
  • $30,760for the Cybersecurity BAS program
  • $63,043for the Enrollment Navigator
  • $147,764for the Palo Alto Firewall.
• Support employees and their professionaldevelopment, including funding for two additional requests on the ReallocationList:
  • $16,000for the annual Teaching and Learning Days
  • $40,000for ongoing Power, Privilege and Inequity training (from the Reallocation List)
  • $53,000for Teaching and Learning Center programming (from the Reallocation List)
• Dedicate funding for faculty salaryimprovements:
  • $600,000
• Support teach-outs in Instruction
  • $200,000

After accounting for these commitments, $173,953 remainsin unallocated contingency.  It’s a small cushion but will provide someflexibility should our tuition and Running Start revenue projections fallshort, or if unexpected needs emerge during the course of the year.  Wealso haven’t ruled out using this contingency to go further down theReallocation List.

We expect to see our initial allocation from the stateboard in the next few weeks.  Once we have those numbers I will send outanother message describing not only the amount we received but also any rulesor restrictions on how those dollars may be used.  Our goal remains havinga 2019-20 budget to present to the Board of Trustees for approval on June 12.

I appreciate your patience as we have worked through avery difficult and complex budget development process. 

Bob Knight

President