| Greetings! |
Happy July 7, 2010:
I hope you had a wonderful July 4th holiday with time to celebrate our great country and to relax with family and friends. Our small summer session continues while students still try to find classes that don't exist. We are already 2,200 FTES over our state funded level -- about 6,000 headcount. It will take many years for state funding to catch up. We can all be proud of the excellent work we are doing in our community. And tired!
Now that June 30 has come and gone, we will begin to see the impact of the SERP on our District. We will miss our friends and co-workers and we may slowly discover some gaps in our work processes. Just know that I am aware of the challenges that face us and I will be listening to what you have to say. Our funding is very tenuous right now and all problems may not be immediately solvable but we must continue to plan for the future and recognize needs as they arise.
I want to thank you for your continued good work in support of our students. Everything you do for our students adds up...one student at a time.
By the way, if you haven't seen Toy Story III yet, don't miss it! This is not just a kids movie. I had to make believe I wasn't crying by the time the ending credits were rolling.
Bruce Baron
Interim Chancellor
382-4090 |
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State budget update.
No budget in sight!
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The new fiscal year has started and there is no state budget in place. Budget negotiations will continue but legislators are not scheduled to return to Sacramento until August 2 unless a budget deal is reached.
There is disagreement between the political parties about how to resolve the 19.1 billion budget deficit. There is also disagreement within political parties. A large part of the problem is that past budget solutions had a one-time benefit and did not address the long-term issues. Temporary income tax hikes, temporary furloughs, and cash deferrals do not solve the problem - just delay the crisis. In addition, the state has relied on federal stimulus funds this year that will not be available next year.
There are many solutions in discussion right now. Those solutions include
- extending taxes that were scheduled to end in December, 2010 (tax hike on vehicles).
- imposing new taxes (on oil extraction and other areas).
- borrowing more money (selling education bonds).
- making drastic cuts to social service programs (by elimination of CalWORKS and other programs).
- selling state buildings and leasing them back.
- assuming $3.4 billion in increased federal assistance.
- many other ideas.
With no state budget in place it is very likely that the state Controller will hold back funds for the community colleges to operate causing cash-flow problems in districts across the state. At SBCCD, with our current cash balances plus our current borrowing authority of $5 million from the County treasury we can probably pay our commitments through September. Hopefully, a state budget will be in place before that time. I will keep you posted.
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Sustainability |
You may have read in this week's Chronicle that our District was dropped from the American College & University President's Climate Commitment. Sadly, this is true. Since the commitment was made over two years ago our District was supposed to have taken several actions including a complete inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions; developing an institutional structure to guide the development and implementation of a comprehensive plan to achieve climate neutrality; and establishing targets for goals and actions that will lead to climate neutrality. With the changes in administration these topics were never introduced for discussion and the necessary work was never started.
I want you to know that I am personally committed to the principles of sustainability. I believe that as educators we must demonstrate leadership in our community by minimizing global warming emissions and by providing knowledgeable graduates to achieve climate neutrality. This fall I will introduce this subject to our collegial consultation processes to determine if this is a commitment we want to make as a district. We can rejoin the initiative, if we desired, after the appropriate consultation and buy-in is achieved to make it a successful endeavor.
Sustainability is a vitally important topic for our district to discuss and I hope we can become proactive, like many colleges and universities across the country, in building sustainability into the fabric of our organization.
You can read more about the American College & University President's Climate Commitment by clicking here. |
Chancellor's Chat
