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My assignment from the
Chaparral editorial board this month was to investigate the growth in
management costs at GCC over the last ten years.
I don't
have the heart to do it, for obvious reasons.
I love John
Davitt. I have known him longer than nearly all of you. I am sorry he is
sick, and I wish him well. I cried along with everyone else at the
Faculty meeting on March 4. We need John's leadership and that of the
three vice presidents.
I agree
that we need to work together to find a solution without pointing
fingers. But I am worried because I didn't hear a plan to get our
college out of the present fiscal difficulty, although I did see
management point the finger at the state of California numerous times.
Surely we must bear some of the responsibility for our own crisis. The
presentation by management at the Faculty meeting was very solid,
professional, and simplified, but with no room for questions. There was
one solution implied.
We must cut
more classes to reduce our "unfunded FTES" (saving money by
not hiring adjunct faculty to teach these classes), and contract faculty
must take a pay cut and give up hard-earned, contractually guaranteed
health and welfare benefits until the budget is balanced. This is
unacceptable to faculty.
Before this is seriously considered, more cuts must be
made in several areas. Administrative Services has cut less than
one-half the amount that College Services has. That amount must be
increased to show that we are following the usual Glendale College
formula of proportional cuts. These two areas have roughly equal shares
of the budget; cuts should be comparable. For cuts to be proportional
Instruction should cut about twice the amount of each of these two
areas. Presumably once these are equalized, every $2 cut in instruction
should be matched by $1 each in Administrative Services and College
Services. This will certainly not be done. If 200 more classes are cut
for this fall, Administrative Services and College Services will each
need to cut an additional $300,000 to be fair. These will duplicate
College Services cuts and more than double those already made by
Administrative Services in order to be proportional. If this is not
done, that is, if there is no attempt at fair and equitable sharing of
the cuts, anything we do will be seen as balancing the budget on the
backs of our students and faculty. Talk of proportional sharing of the
pain will be nothing more than rhetoric. Negotiations on salary reductions for faculty cannot and should
not even be considered. Unfortunately, the word "cuts" at this
time means that people must be let go. There is no way to make up a $1
million deficit by turning down the air conditioning on Friday
afternoons.
Individual
people in various programs will be let go, and entire programs will be
cut as well. There is no option, and no other is forthcoming from
management.
It is true that we are much more than just rooms full
of classes and laboratories. There are special programs that make GCC a
fine place to get an education and a great place to work. But there is
no way that all these can be maintained in our current financial
conditions. We can deal realistically with our crisis or hope for a
miracle. &
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