Colleges brace for budget battle

Tom Koenninger, member of the state Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

Bob Knight, Clark College president.

Bright sunshine that streamed into Gaiser Hall on Thursday couldn’t lift the gloom that hangs over Clark College and other Washington community colleges.

The state budget hammer is about to come crashing down, and come down hard.

School leaders just hope to blunt the impact, wielding as a shield their self-proclaimed role as a critical agent of economic recovery.

A grim state Board for Community and Technical Colleges wrapped up two days of meetings in Vancouver. The panel urged Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and legislators to give schools “maximum flexibility” and timely direction to make large budget cuts she’s already ordered.

Flexibility would expand if Gregoire approves a reduction in state-funded student allotments, which would allow the board to declare a “financial emergency.”

That declaration would allow schools to enter negotiations with faculty unions over layoffs of tenured instructors.

The board also called for easing of state budget mandates for narrowly focused programs that reach a small minority of students.

There was no sugarcoating what options lie ahead.

“We’re going through a lot of agony. This is like a funeral, with no way out of the room,” said Tom Koenninger, board member representing Southwest Washington, and a Clark College alumnus and longtime advocate.

“It’s a very unpleasant journey, and it’s a journey that involves the core of what we do: The job to re-educate and retrain workers,” said Koenninger, who’s also editor emeritus of The Columbian.

College officials are in full scramble mode to identify and protect core student learning, while bracing to shed enrollment slots, faculty and staff members and ancillary programs.

Dire cutbacks will come by summer, if Gregoire and legislators follow through on 20 percent budget reductions she has recommended.

A recent survey of 21 presidents (of 34 in the state system) hinted at their first steps, should Gregoire’s hard line hold:

n All but two colleges plan to reduce student enrollments, by 15 to 20 percent.

n Three-quarters of schools would look to hike tuition rates by 6 percent or more, some schools eyeing hikes greater than 11 percent.

n Three-quarters plan to reduce or eliminate Adult Basic Education and/or English as a Second Language programs.

n More than half would trim or eliminate evening and weekend classes, with part-time faculty among the first layoff victims. About half would reduce or eliminate satellite campus offerings.

n More than half expect to reduce counseling, advising and other student services.

Other potential targets are apprenticeship or specialized work force job training; parent education-child care programs; student activities and clubs; and even Running Start programs for younger, high school students who bring colleges only partial state funding.

Gregoire earlier ordered community and technical colleges to trim spending by 4.1 percent during the next seven months alone, a $30.5 million hit.

For the bearish 2009-11 state budget, to be written by legislators in Olympia next spring, she has directed that colleges slash spending by another 20 percent — minimum. That’s part of a $600 million hit for Washington higher education funding.

Both moves respond to an estimated $5.1 billion state deficit for 2009-11, a figure that might quickly reach $6 billion and force deeper cuts yet for colleges.

Bob Knight, Clark College president, addressed the board and stressed “creativity” and “clarity” from Olympia.

Until Gregoire’s formal 2009-11 budget plan emerges later this month, colleges won’t know their target numbers. A prolonged fight in the Legislature could delay final budget adoption until late spring, complicating staffing cuts, Knight said.

He urged a swift emergency declaration and unified pressure from student and faculty groups, business leaders and other advocates to fend off the worst.

A combination of layoffs, higher tuition and delay in implementing voter-approved state initiatives (for example, Initiative 1029, which requires new caregiver training) could ease cutbacks, Knight said.

“I’m optimistic it won’t be a full 20 percent. We can’t let go of that message,” Knight said. If so, the picture dims, he said.

“Something’s got to give … the mission of the community college may have to change,” Knight said. “We’re not going to be able to serve the same number of students we serve today.”

The board on Thursday also recommended $249 million in ready-for-bid campus construction jobs that could serve as an immediate economic stimulus plan. A second proposed list of follow-up projects is worth $126.5 million more.

Neither list contains a Clark College project.

Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.