To combat an increasing budget deficit in the next academic year, the Planning and Budget Committee introduced a proposal for across-the-board budget cuts at its meeting Thursday, March 20.
Under the proposal, each division and department at El Camino College will reduce spending by 6.25%, with additional targeted cuts occurring where necessary.
“We believe that this is the best approach for El Camino,” Loic Audusseau, interim vice president of Administrative Services, said.
The college is currently in an $11.6 million projected deficit, and despite certain cost-saving measures like the Supplemental Employee Retirement Plan saving the district $5 million annually, expenses continue to grow.
“[The proposal] is pretty practical, because at least we have somewhat concrete suggestions on how to get there, and it’s not just this larger like, ‘Where do we cut from?'” Kristina Martinez, acting dean of Enrollment Services, said.
The reduction factor of 6.25% was calculated through a formula which divides the projected deficit for the next fiscal year, $12 million, by the college’s total expected expenditures, $192 million.
“That $12 million projected deficit is only as good as today’s numbers are good,” Audusseau said. “We’re already doing some work to somehow reduce that projected deficit as much as we can.”
To implement the cuts, the college’s vice presidents will work with each department individually.
Although a proportional budget cut quickly addresses the deficit, it may adversely affect departments which already have minimal funding or “lean budgets,” according to the presentation.
“The VPs will be here to assist with making this process work for all departments that have already very lean budgets,” Audusseau said.
Audusseau said that the definition of a lean budget, as it applies to each department, will be determined by the vice presidents.
The committee has developed this proposal following requests for a zero-deficit, balanced budget.
“The mandate from the board, and certainly from the superintendent/president, is to do everything we can to present a balanced budget this year,” Bob Miller, special assistant to the superintendent/president and professional expert on administrative services, said.
However, while the proposed budget cuts will help lower expenses, it will not cure the college’s structural deficit, which is where its ongoing expenses consistently exceed its ongoing revenues.
“This idea, that zeroing out while having a balanced budget, … does not address the structural deficit. It buys us time,” Audusseau said.
Zero-based budgeting, a budget-planning method used by some colleges, requires all expenses to be justified, but is difficult to implement quickly due to it being time and labor-intensive.
“I feel that zero-based budgeting is the unicorn of budget development at community colleges. That is the one thing that everyone is aiming for, but very few have successfully implemented it,” Audusseau said.
The budgeting proposal presented at the meeting is a hybrid of different budget development techniques, including proportional budgeting and priority-based budgeting.
While the committee recommends a universal 6.25% budget cut for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year, a transition to priority-based budgeting is planned for future years.
Priority-based budgeting aligns spending with a college’s priorities and can be implemented quickly, but it requires clear criteria and some departments may resist budget cuts, Audusseau said.
The budget cut proposal will be evaluated and discussed further before being approved.
“What we’re doing now … isn’t necessarily addressing the core problem. The only thing that’s going to address that is to drive the revenue higher, at this point,” Miller said.
The next Planning and Budget Committee meeting is set for Thursday, April 24.
Editor’s Note: The featured image was updated on Saturday, March 22 at 12:06 a.m.
