Despite their obvious benefit to society, running a public school is always an expensive prospect. In addition to having all of the typical business expenses, employees, insurance, maintenance, etc., schools must provide supplies and resources to thousands of students, many of whom can’t afford to shell out the big bucks that students attending a private school might have access to. That’s why it’s so important to make every dollar count.

While Gov. Brown’s Prop 30, passed in 2012, has helped cushion the meager government funds that public schools rely on, we’ve seen first hand here at EC the struggles and tough choices that schools are forced to endure in the face of limited funding. In that light, the $5.5 million of government funding that the EC Compton Center will have to return is a major blow to the school.

While officials have assured us that the funds owed, in light of the contracting issues with Compton Center’s cosmetology program, won’t affect the day to day running of our sister school, that’s really only a short term view of the problem. While the school won’t have to pay the sum back immediately, it’s still a major burden on the Compton Center’s resources.

To put the issue in better context, the Compton Center only expected to receive about $25 million in state funding in the 2013-14 school year, according to a budget provided on the Compton Center’s website. That’s one fifth of the school’s annual revenue gone without good reason (though yes, it won’t have to pay it back all at once, that’s still a large sum of money).

For anyone still scratching their heads, $5.5 million is the same amount of money that divorcees Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom put their house on the market for, the annual salary for Miami Dolphins Cornerback Cortland Finnegan, and the same price that you can get a 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake for.

However, with all of that said, what’s done is done. No amount of finger pointing and recrimination will bring that money back. We’ve been told that the funds owed by the Compton Center won’t affect the Torrance campus, but that’s only from a fiscal standpoint. The fact is, when EC took the Compton Center under its wing, we made them a part of our community, and in times of crisis and misfortune, it’s important for a community to stand together.

There’s a way for every student and employee at EC to help out, whether that means donating used textbooks instead of selling them, volunteering to help out on the Compton campus, or even just dropping by a board of trustees meeting to show support. Our community can make a difference if it tries, if it motivates itself to care about its neighbors.

And if anybody happens to have a spare Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake laying about, the school could probably make use of that too.