Guarding funds for 2-year colleges pushed
Ventura Star 3/5/07
Miller, president of the Ventura County Community College District Board of Trustees, and thousands of other amendment supporters across California turned in some 900,000 signatures to election officials throughout the state in January. Supporters are confident that this is more than enough to put the measure on the ballot in 2008. The measure needs 598,105 valid signatures to qualify.
The yet-to-be-named measure is seen as one of the most important for California's 109 community colleges in decades.
The measure, which needs just a simple majority of voters to pass, would amend Proposition 98 by no longer using K-12 enrollment data to calculate funding for community colleges. Instead, community college funding would be based on enrollment at the two-year schools.
Passed by California voters in 1988, Proposition 98 was supposed to guarantee a minimum level of annual funding not only for K-12 schools but also community colleges. But the K-12 schools ended up getting more than their share, Miller said. Community colleges, meanwhile, were often left wanting.
"Community colleges are underfunded by about 50 percent," Miller said.
The result is that many college districts, including Ventura County's, have faced multimillion-dollar budget deficits. To remain solvent, districts have had to cut classes, lay off staff and close campus dining facilities.
Students have also seen dramatic increases in their per-unit fees. As recently as fall, students were paying $26 per unit. They paid $12 per unit only a few years before.
Per-unit fees decreased to $20 this semester thanks to an increase in state funding.
The proposed 2008 ballot measure would bring per-unit fees to $15. The measure would also require at least a two-thirds vote by the Legislature to enact a fee increase.
Backers of the proposed measure are confident that voters will approve it. They point to polls showing strong voter support for such a measure and for community colleges.
"Community colleges are one of the best bargains in California and key to its economic success," said Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers' Community College Council and a mathematics instructor at Los Angeles Valley College. Hittelman's group is one of numerous organizations that back the proposal.
More than 1 million full-time students are enrolled in community colleges in California.
Enrollment at community colleges is projected to increase substantially over the coming year owing partly to a growth in the state's population, said Kenneth Burt, political director of the California Federation of Teachers. Many workers will also find a need for the schools to get added training in a fast-changing world increasingly dominated by technology and science.
The measure is expected to provide community college districts with millions of additional dollars a year without raising taxes, its backers say.
Hittelman said funding would come directly from the state's general fund.
The Ventura County Community College District, for example, would receive $156.8 million in the 2008-09 school year should the measure be approved, according to a Web site maintained by Californians for Improving Community Colleges, a coalition of educators and community college organizations. Under Proposition 98, however, the district would get $4.1 million less in 2008-09.
The disparity in funding between what the measure would offer versus what the district would get under Proposition 98 is projected to widen each year thereafter. By 2012-13, the district would get $213.3 million with the measure, $27.1 million more than if the measure is not approved.
Supporters also emphasize that the measure would not take any funding away from K-12 schools. The measure would instead be an extension of Proposition 98, said Jonathan Lightman, executive director of the Faculty Association of California.
"There are structural flaws with Proposition 98," Lightman said. "Our intent with this initiative is to give the public access to high-quality and affordable higher education."
The proposed measure has no formal opposition so far, Lightmann said. But some organizations, such as the California Teachers Association, have yet to take a position.
"We don't take a position on a measure until it's on the ballot," said Mike Myslinski, spokesman for the CTA, which has 340,000 members statewide.