As a freshman nearing the end of my first year at El Camino College, it has been hard to ignore the concerning behavior regarding the school and how it handles finances relative to students.
Like many other students at the school, I am a lower-income student who relies on the fact that I am saving money by choosing to go to community college. We find comfort in feeling like our money isn’t being wasted, and it truly does all go toward enhancing our education.
You can imagine my shock, and the shock of my friends, when we learned about some of the contracts that El Camino has after confirming its budget deficit and making all departments cut their spending by 6.25%, as reported by The Union in March.
After sitting through one of this semester’s Board of Trustees meetings, I can understand how there is a reported budget deficit. What I cannot understand is why the college is paying PPL Pros, Incorporated, an outside budget consulting company over $126,518 from April to December, after already having paid Bob Miller, special assistant to the superintendent/president and professional expert on Administrative Services, about $90,000 for his work from January to April.
The reason why this is so concerning to me is that the dollar amount is more than what the department I’m majoring in, Journalism, gets for an entire school year.
While El Camino is asking all departments to cut their spending, they’re paying outside entities for budget consulting and other jobs that someone already a part of campus should be able to do.
I can’t help but wonder why El Camino is paying someone else to take marketing and promotional footage when the Marketing staff aren’t available after hours, instead of paying their current employees overtime.
The only reason I’m left wondering is that at the board meetings, they do not go over the money that they are saying yes to spending in the Consent Calendars. Some hundreds of dollars, approved to be spent in one fell swoop. One simple vote.
My questions would probably be answered if they opened the floor up for questions instead of only allowing public comment. It doesn’t seem like they address questions at all, but instead decide behind closed doors, just like the contracts they decide to approve.
As a student who does not have nor come from a lot of money, I would appreciate those in charge of spending sums being a little more open so students can understand what they’re doing with those sums, instead of it being this uphill battle.
Sure, the information is public, but how public is the information if the general public doesn’t understand how to read it and has to search far and wide to find answers?
