Oregon community colleges find little relief with budget
Across the state, cash for learning centers tightens
BY RYAN KOST
Associated Press
Friday, December 26, 2008 9:09 PM PST
PORTLAND — In mid-November, before a room packed with teachers and administrators, Gov. Ted Kulongoski called education his ‘’absolute top priority.’’ Weeks later, he seemed to make good on his promise when he unveiled his budget for the upcoming biennium.
Even in these doom-and-gloom times, Kulongoski budgeted slight increases for two educational sectors. K-12 saw a 2 percent bump over the last biennium while state universities saw a 9 percent increase.
Community college funding, however, stagnated. In fact, advocates worry the colleges may face a cut. Their budget comes in at 3 percent less the last biennium with the understanding the Oregon Legislature would fill the gap. But there is no guarantee lawmakers will act.
‘’I think that being down was a little bit hard to take when the other two education sectors were up even a slight increment,’’ said Clackamas Community College President Joanne Truesdell. What’s more, she and others say, this comes at a time when lawmakers are looking to the colleges to offer work force training for Oregonians who have lost their jobs. The most recent report said Oregon’s unemployment rate is the eighth highest in the nation at about 8 percent.
“It’s a conundrum at best,’’ Truesdell said, “and my hope is that as the session moves on, and as people need re-employment that we’re actually able to stabilize in our funding.’’
In his budget, Kulongoski allotted $485 million to the Community College Support Fund, approximately $15 million less than the previous biennium. The governor proposes making up that shortfall by moving $15 million from the Education Stability Fund into the community college system.
The idea, said spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor, is that the budget will fully fund the community college system for the budget’s first year, and then legislators can take further action during their 2010 special session. ‘’We’ll know more about where the economy is going. ... The reality is that the general fund is just not there right now. “This is different, he’s taking a different approach to educational funding.’’
Indeed, the governor has outlined plans to tap the stability fund for both the K-12 and university systems. Still, relying on the Legislature to do tap the fund puts the colleges in a precarious budgeting situation, said Andrea Henderson, the executive director of the Oregon Community College Association.
Her worries aren’t completely unfounded.
When House Democrats unveiled their economic proposal late last month, they said Oregonians would have to rely on community colleges as the recession crushed companies and stole jobs. And yet, even they’re not willing to commit to tapping into the stability fund at this point.
House Speaker-Designee Dave Hunt said the governor’s budget underfunds the community college system, but asked whether he could promise that the colleges will receive the additional $15 million as outlined in the budget, he said, simply, ‘’no.’’
‘’It’s definitely a huge priority for us,’’ Hunt said, but without knowing what future revenue forecasts would look like, he said it’s too early to promise anything to anybody. Hunt did say that he would, at a minimum, like to get funding to the level of last year’s biennium.
If that doesn’t happen, community college presidents warn that students might have to shoulder the burden, both through increased tuition and fewer course and programming choices.
At Central Oregon Community College, where admission has grown by more than 18 percent over the past year, student tuition covers only about a third of the total cost. What’s more, the college is drawing fewer and fewer dollars from property taxes. ‘’It’s a tough situation,’’ said Ron Paradis, Central Oregon’s director of college relations.
If funding were to mirror growth, community colleges would be the first sector to see any sort of increase.
Overall, the community college system has seen a more than 10 percent enrollment increase over the past year, Henderson said. That’s more than double the 5 percent increase in the university system and considerably larger than the 1 to 2 percent increase in the K-12 system.
‘’We understand the economy is bad and there are very bleak times out there for the state budget, so we expected that it would not be a healthy budget,’’ Lane Community College President Mary Spilde told radio station KCST. ‘’What we did not expect was that the community colleges would be treated inequitably within the education sector.’’
Richter Taylor says that’s not the case. Though the budget looks somewhat lopsided, she points to some other ‘’targeted’’ investments the governor has made in the system including capital construction, work force training grants and career readiness funds.
‘’I think the governor would agree that he would like to invest more in community colleges. He would like to invest more in the entire education enterprise,’’ Richter Taylor said. ‘’But I don’t think anybody can question that he had made education his number one priority.’’
