BOARD OF GOVERNOR'S
2001-2002 BUDGET REQUEST
The following responses represent Sonoma County Community College District's positions relative to the Board of Governor's Basic Agenda proposals for funding in fiscal year 2001-2002. These positions have been developed through the college's participatory governance process, and have been endorsed by the college's Board of Trustees on May 9, 2000.
Sonoma County Community College District reaffirms the system's goal of funding 4% growth. However, funding for growth should never precede in importance the necessity to maintain adequate funding for current enrollment levels. The State must be cautious about placing undue emphasis on funding growth at the expense of quality in existing programs, especially in those academic areas that are being challenged by a wave of new science and technology. In addition, it must be understood that growth is influenced by several critical variables besides population growth:
a) Growth in non-credit instruction is growing exponentially as employers seek to maintain a trained workforce by working with community colleges to structure skill-based training that is targeted specifically to their labor needs. These employers care about competencies and little about whether a course is expressed in credit hours. Colleges can respond to these expressed needs of employers for "quick start" training by structuring it as non-credit instruction, thereby avoiding the time- and resource-intensive processes involved in developing the course as a credit offering, In addition, these learning needs often cannot be met without a significant investment in equipment and faculty training, due to the specialized nature of the program. Therefore, a system proposal is needed that would verify the importance of community college noncredit education, and recognize the need to close the funding gap between credit and noncredit instruction. This difference is currently about $1,280 per FTES for the system. It is recommended that the State close the funding gap in apportionment rates for credit and noncredit instruction over a four-year period (approximately $320/FTES per year), and that this be accomplished by using growth funds as a major funding source for accomplishing this goal.
b) In Sonoma County, headcount enrollment is increasing dramatically across the college, except those students taking a full load of 12 or more units. Presumably, this is occurring because of the excellent job opportunities available to people who would otherwise attend college full-time. Such a phenomenon places added burdens on the college's support services, such as admissions and registration, counseling, financial aid, student employment, cashiering, and student health services. It is recommended that the State funding model place additional emphasis upon headcount in relationship to enrolled units.
c) Funding for community college enrollment growth has historically dried up when the state's economic climate has taken a downturn. Unlike the university systems, community colleges experience enrollment changes that are clearly counter-cyclical to the state's economy. Community colleges still function for many thousands of students as a "second chance" to prepare for new job opportunities or to climb out of poverty. At times when community colleges can be of greatest assistance to the state in hedging against the deleterious effects of a recession, the state has been unable to fund enrollment growth. It is recommended that the state set aside, in a special reserve, state appropriations for future funding needs that will occur during recessionary periods.
Sonoma County Community College District affirms the Board of Governor's position that state funding, as a first priority, should be directed toward meeting the annual college budget needs impacted by inflation. In addition, it is recommended that the BOG continue to seek restoration of funds for the four years in the early 1990's when the State failed to meet its statutory obligation to achieve COLA funding.
Also, there is a need to recognize the significant disparities in the costs of providing education in different regions of this state. Since some areas have significantly higher living costs, merely advocating that the same revenue per student be the long-term goal for the system places such institutions in jeopardy. Increasingly, the capability of a local institution to attract new faculty is being driven by housing and other living costs. As an example, the CPI for the San Francisco region for the past three years has been 3.42%, 3.18%, and 4.23%, respectively. The COLA allocated for those years, in the same order, was 3.06%, 2.97%, and 2.26%. For the current year, COLA was established at 1.41%, which is considerably below the expected CPI. It is recommended that the BOG re-inspect the COLA calculation, and recognize the higher costs of living and operating in certain areas of the state by adding a funding component to the COLA formula that distinguishes between the lower and higher cost regions.
Finally, Sonoma County Community College District encourages the Board of Governors to continue its efforts to remind the Governor and the State Legislature of their constitutional and statutory obligations under Proposition 98, which amended Article XVI of the State Constitution in 1988. Proposition 98 was passed with the specific intent of ensuring a minimum annual funding level for K-14 education, and subsequent legislation was enacted to ensure a balanced funding split between the educational sectors. In 1992-93,however, the statutory split between educational sectors was suspended for community colleges, resulting in a reduction to the approximate 11% of total educational funding which was to be allocated to the community college system. The community colleges have never been restored to this statutory funding share. While it is recognized that the entire system of public K-14
education is under-funded compared to the nation as a whole, it is recommended that the Board of Governors continue its efforts to educate the Governor and Legislature on the importance of acting upon their constitutional and statutory obligation to ensure proportionate funding for community colleges as compared to the K-12 sector.
Sonoma County Community College District strongly endorses the implementation of an equalization process, and recommends that the BOG seek legislative approval to direct the allocation of COLA funding toward achievement of the average funding level per FTE student. It does not make operational sense to distinguish between large, medium and small districts in this process, since the small differences between districts caused by size can be addressed in other categorical funds. The purpose of this fund should simply be to ensure a baseline level of funding per FTES, and COLA funds should be used to move colleges more quickly toward parity.
With California's institutions receiving funding below the national average by over $2,500 per FTES, the system is falling dangerously behind the rest of the nation in the provision of high quality educational services. One does not have to go far around the nation to discover how much the California system has fallen from the position of leadership it once held. States such as Michigan, Illinois and North Carolina suffered significant recessionary periods in the 1980's or early 1990's, but their funding levels have recovered through the efforts of strong state-level initiatives restoring their community college systems to a position of leadership.
California has never restored the funding deficit in community colleges, even in relationship to the other California educational systems. The Association of Chief Business Officers calculates that $425 million would have to be infused into the community colleges merely to restore funding to an equivalent level with that received by the K-12, CSU and UC systems during the last decade. As a consequence, Sonoma County Community College District recommends the following:
Sonoma County Community College District supports the state's efforts to improve the quality of institutions through the infusion of new funds for human resources. However, any funding proposal that, by its construction, places the state in a position of deciding what is best for each local community college, must be challenged on its merits. In this instance, funds that were contained in a general COLA provision were removed and placed into a targeted categorical program. Unfortunately, not all community colleges in the system have the need to target these funds into the same specific human resource areas. It is recommended that the Chancellor's proposal for an $80 million fund to improve the human resources infrastructure at community colleges be funded in the future, but that the BOG withhold its endorsement of any movement toward additional targeting of State resources into narrowly-defined categorical programs.
Sonoma County Community College District supports the continuation of funding for student outreach and access through a combined request. However, it is necessary to recognize one of the main purposes of these programs, which is academic achievement. It is recommended that the BOG continue to seek funding for student support programs in a combined proposal entitled "Student Outreach, Access and Achievement."
This is one of the few special purpose areas that necessitates a strong state-coordinated initiative to ensure that the CCC System moves forward effectively and efficiently to respond to a rapidly changing teaching and learning environment. Business and industry is demanding much higher technical skills in the workplace, and community colleges are uniquely structured to respond to these training needs. The rapidly changing environment in the technologies necessitates that community colleges constantly invest in both the training of faculty and new equipment. Since these investments are substantial and constantly changing, it is recommended that the Board of Governors adopt the Technology II Plan and work with the Legislature to provide the resources necessary for its implementation. It is also imperative that individual institutions be allowed maximum flexibility to utilize these resources, including redirecting them to other critical needs within the institution, as long as the institution meets the standards set under the plan.
A large majority of new jobs created by the nation's business and industry will require post-secondary skills. While the percentage of the nation's workforce needing bachelor's and advanced degrees has remained relatively constant over the past four decades, the percentage requiring an associate's degree has grown considerably, with a corresponding decrease in the need for workers possessing only a high school diploma or less. Consequently, the role of community colleges in creating an educated workforce is central to the future economic well-being of all Americans. It is recommended that the BOG continue to emphasize the role of community colleges in providing a well-trained workforce; however, the state should vigorously pursue bringing California's general funding level into alignment with the nation's leading state community college systems, thereby providing a funding level sufficient to enable local colleges to respond to the many demands for a trained workforce. The state should resist creating additional categorical funding to address issues such as local training needs that are part of the primary mission of community colleges.
Adopted by Budget Advisory Committee 4/18/00
Adopted by Institutional Planning Council 5/1/00