Budget accord reached (LA Times)Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders announced Monday that they had reached a deal to close California's $26.3-billion deficit and begin paying all of the state's bills again, potentially ending months of partisan wrangling and a cash crisis that threatens to push California into insolvency.
Their agreement, which could go before the full Legislature within days, does not include any broad-based tax increases, relying instead on deep cuts in government services, borrowing and accounting maneuvers to wipe out the deficit.
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It is not clear whether the package will pass when lawmakers vote on it, perhaps Thursday. Concern that it could unravel as interest groups catch wind of its contents and pressure the rank-and-file to vote it down was evident in legislative staffers' reluctance to share some details
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Education would … lose billions of dollars, although the deal skirts suspension of voter-approved funding formulas. Schools are expected to have to increase the number of students in classes, lay off teachers and scale back their offerings. Education lobbyists won a provision that requires the state to ultimately pay back money it is cutting, but districts are struggling now….
President Roquemore (IVC) has forwarded (to the campus community) a letter from Scott Lay, President/CEO of the Community College League of California.
Lay writes:
…[T]he plan cuts community colleges by $936 million in state general funds. Student fees would increase to $26/unit effective with the fall semester ($17/unit for the two districts on the quarter system).
Even with $70 million in additional student fee revenue and up to $130 million in one-time federal funds, the cuts are the deepest in the history of California's community colleges. With booming enrollment from four converging forces--record high school graduates, redirected four-year students, returning veterans, and the newly unemployed--the budget will significantly constrain access and limit essential student services.
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Nobody is happy with this budget, and community colleges are no different. However, we did succeed in extracting a commitment in the deal to repay K-12 schools and community colleges $9.5 billion as the economy rebounds. This is an important restoration of quality that will likely begin in 2012-13. We certainly have several difficult years ahead….
See also in this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:
No Vacancy
At American River College, in Sacramento, desperate times are calling for desperate measures. ¶ Like so many community colleges in California, all reeling from …[budget cuts], American River simply does not have enough classroom space to accommodate all of its students. Last month, for example, estimates noted that almost 250,000 students statewide would be kept from community colleges due to dwindling space.
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The crunch has been especially noticeable in general education courses required for graduation or transfer to a four-year institution, such as introductory English composition and college mathematics. Students nearing graduation who have put off these courses now jockey for position against an influx of first-time students who fear that if they do not take them now they will never get the chance to finish on time and within their budget.
As a result of unprecedented student demand and a dwindling state budget, small classes have become a thing of the past….
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Students are not the only ones feeling the pinch at American River. Adjunct faculty members, like their students, are scrambling to find classes for themselves.
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Further south in San Diego, at Miramar College, there is another kind of overcrowding issue. Academic counselors, responsible for helping students survey the uncertain terrain of cut courses, are becoming harder to see.
“We had a number of staff cuts,” said Rick Cassar, academic counselor at Miramar. “Typically, we each saw seven to eight students a day in one-hour sessions. Now, there is such a demand from students that everything is on a walk-in basis. It’s kind of like the DMV. I’m seeing about 30 students a day. Recently, I even saw 54 students in one day, each in short ten-minute appointments. Morale is down in our office, and people are feeling burnt out.”
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The concern of the moment, however, is the plight of California’s community college students, many of whom may find themselves trapped without the classes they need to graduate or unable to transfer onward to earn a bachelor’s degree….
Pics: this morning, TigerAnn and I tried out my new 60mm lens.
ARCHIVE PROJECT:
The family film archive project continues. Came across these pics recently. This is my late little brother Ray, on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada, 1975:
And here's my little bro Ronny, on the same mountain:
My dad caught this sunset in 1985, likely in the Bay area.
Mono Lake, 1985:
