$23 million.
That is how much money is saved in reserve just in case there is ever a financial emergency.
Well, now salaries are getting slashed, winter session’s gone and classes have been gutted.
But this isn’t too much trouble.
Some EC officials have said they will  wait and see if things get worse within the next five years before any of that money is put to use.
That sounds like a great idea.
In fact, let’s just wait until classroom sizes are reduced to one; have one professor in charge of teaching all the classes in one division, or maybe even two divisions if you want to really penny pinch; and cut a few more semesters here and there for the next couple of years before it is decided to use the reserve fund.
Maybe then it might be bad enough to finally do something with that money.
Or let’s just let it sit around, collect a big fat interest rate on it for a new bond and use the money to rebuild the campus.
Even though the college is turning away students and cutting salaries from the faculty, they might as well make the buildings look pretty while we’re suffering.
The point of having a reserve, which is supposed to be at most 5 percent of the total budget, is to use it when the college is facing financial trouble.
Instead of punishing the students and the faculty, we should use some of the reserve to help retain classes and some hardworking instructors.
This year’s winter session has been cut completely, with no chance of bringing it back and the future of winter session remaining uncertain.
The question shouldn’t be about whether we should use the money but rather how much should we use so the college does not have to resort to getting rid of classes and hurting the pay for faculty.
At the end of the day, all these cutbacks and conservative decisions are only hurting the students and the faculty.
Without a winter session, students have to resort to looking for another community college to take classes in their winter session.
And with no students to teach, there is no money for faculty.
So far EC officials have provided no valid reason for just standing pat with the reserve money while allowing these cuts to continue.
Waiting for the college’s financial situation to worsen before they decide to do anything with the reserve money is the wrong way to go. Students and faculty should be a priority here.
While EC officials have two reasons why they shouldn’t do anything with the reserve money, there are 23 million reasons why they should.