Bruce Gourley has worn many hats in his nearly 30 years at Allan Hancock College, both as an associate faculty member and in his current role as coordinator of the school’s multimedia services.
Now, Gourley is one of 10 non-teaching staff members at the college hoping to hold onto their jobs as the school struggles to solve a $2 million budget deficit for 2010-11.
The college’s recommendation for “reorganization” of 11 support positions—one is currently vacant—came as a result of a workforce study instituted by school president José Ortiz in September.
The results of the study were presented at the Allan Hancock Joint Community College District’s Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 19.
A negotiator for the California State Employees Association and former union chapter president, Gourley said he was “heartsick” to find out from the union just days before the meeting that his job was on the line.
“I was surprised. I was dumbstruck,” he said. “It’s hard to describe how I felt, but ‘betrayed’ is a word that I’ve used in public.”
Inside Hancock’s Student Center, Gourley and other classified employees spoke passionately before the board and a standing-room only crowd of faculty and support staffers. Board president Carol Anders responded by asking the employees for patience in the face of “many difficult and painful decisions.” Then, Anders announced that she and fellow board member Larry Lahr would set up a committee to study the issue further and would report the findings at the board’s next regular meeting in February.
The school, which receives all of its funding from the state, was forced to cut $4.5 million from its budget last year, but was able to avoid layoffs by reducing courses, cutting services, and not rehiring almost 100 part-time faculty members.
Those reductions remain in place, and Hancock is staring at an additional $2.1 million deficit for next year. Without the access to one-time federal funds, which the school already used up in 2009, the gap is even worse than it appears, said Hancock’s director of public affairs, Rebecca Alarcio.
“There’s huge challenges on how to get a balanced budget for next year—and that’s without even knowing if the $2.1 million is our target, because that’s our starting point of what the state is saying is happening right now,” she said. “Yes, we have to come up with at least [that amount] for next year, but that’s not counting what we have to come up with again that we cut out of this budget. We’re looking at a lot of money.”
According to Alarcio, the school has never been forced to lay off a group of employees due to budget reasons. That’s still the case, for now. The day of the board meeting, Hancock president Ortiz e-mailed school faculty and staff a call for a time-out in the restructuring process.
Alarcio said putting the decision on hold would give the board an opportunity to discuss alternatives to job reductions.
“Our next step is to have that dialogue, to have those conversations, and make sure we’re all on the same page with this,” she said. “I think that’s good. That’s our next step, and from there we’ll know which direction we’re going.”
The workforce study surveyed Hancock vice presidents and managers in order to allow school administrators to examine the organizational structure of the college in anticipation of more budget cuts. Ortiz called the process “one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my personal or professional life.”
“The current national fiscal crisis has forced some of the worst budget reductions in the history of California community colleges, such that we will never again have business as usual,” Ortiz wrote in an e-mail in September 2009. “Combine this reality with technological advancements being experienced on our campus, and we have the ‘perfect storm’ for both opportunities and challenges to our administration.”
Upon the study’s completion in December, administrators met with the union to share the classified positions identified for realignment. The district hoped to hold off on notifying the affected employees, intending to research more options. According to Ortiz, school administrators were doing just that, until the union notified the employees they would be receiving layoff memos.
In an e-mail to school faculty, Ortiz called the leak an “unfortunate turn of events.”
“This has caused great grief for all of us,” Ortiz wrote. “However, it is done, and cannot be undone. We must now move forward from here.”
Union representatives expressed desire to move forward as well. California State Employees Association’s Gourley said he’s encouraged by the delay but said it would be pointless unless union and school faculty members are consulted regarding their needs. The union supported the workforce study, Gourley said, but he added that the district didn’t seek enough input from its classified staff before drawing conclusions on the study’s results.
Gourley said the district has an obligation to maintain its financial solvency but believes there’s still time to find other options to layoffs, including taking more furlough days if it would mean keeping jobs intact.
In the meantime, Gourley and a handful of his co-workers can only sit back and wait.
“I want to take [the board] at their word that they’re going to do the right thing,” Gourley said. “They’ve done the right thing in the past when they’ve had the option and seen the things presented to them, and I think they’re looking out ultimately for the betterment of the institution.”
Contact Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 4, 2010.