Wednesday night's budget meeting

Wednesday night hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and community members turned out to the MHCC Budget Committee meeting.

First, we met outside the College Theater on the steps, hearing a few quick words from Oregon Education Association representatives and support from union members from around the area and state. These representatives included those from area K-12 education associations as well as those from trade and labor unions and other community colleges.

Once the College Theater was opened to the public, we headed inside to pick up copies of the budget, sign up to speak, and locate a seat inside, nearly filling all the seats. About two dozen people signed up to speak during the meeting.

First, we heard from Heidi Franklin, who did a presentation on the budget, what the information meant, and what info had been changed since the budget had been handed out at the previous Budget Committee meeting. I know from listening to people inside the Theater that they felt the information presented was often times biased or presented in such a way to make it seem like some non-instructional areas weren't eating as much of the budget as it appeared. This continued later when she was questioned by board members. She was asked why the Q&A mentions that the Aquatic Center is losing $300,000 a year, but in previous documents and meeting the number was pegged at $700,000. She pointed out the $300,000 is the deficit in the Center's budget and does not include the $400,000+ that is included in the facilities management budget. By only including part of the information, the deficit seemed much less of a problem than it actually is.

Next, members of the audience who had signed up to speak were called up one-by-one to speak. The board tried to keep people's remarks short and even tried discouraging talking on the same topics. But since this is the last major public forum before the Budget Committee (aka Board of Educators) votes on the budget, people were not going to let that happen. They made certain that their full remarks were allowed to be read - especially those who had specific questions about numbers in the budget, comparisons to other colleges, etc.

In addition to the "usual suspects," we also had several students that had not spoken before the board previously who got up to speak, including a student in the nursing program. She was supported by a large contingent of her fellow classmates all wearing their blue scrubs.

On several occasions, board members chatted with others at the table while the public was speaking. Rather than waiting until a person's 3-4 minute speech was done, they'd talk with each other or June Jacobs, Assistant to the President. I found this extremely rude, particularly since the whole point of the meeting was for the Committee to hear from the public.

At the end of the Public Input session, the Committee took a short break. Upon reconvening, Dr. Yates was nowhere to be found. Further checking found that he had apparently left the meeting, with reports that he had a security escort with him. The meeting continued with only three board members - Board Chair Brian Freeman, Beverly Russell, and Dave Shields. Rod Monroe - also a state senator - has not been present at any recent meetings because the legislature is in session and he chose to continue with his position on the Board after being elected to the legislature. Bob Morris apparently travels a lot for work and also has not been at recent meetings. Duke Shepard resigned from his seat earlier this year, and the board chose not to fill the seat. As such, there are only four board members of the seven who attend regularly.

The meeting was still within the time allotted for the meeting - 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and as such there was no excuse for Yates to have left. With the second part of the meeting about responding to the community, discussing the budget, etc., it was a slap in the community's face who came out to the meeting for him to leave and not respect their time and efforts.

The remaining members of the board discussed the community's comments and the budget, with most of it coming from Freeman and Shields. It was said that if the board were t accept the faculty's offer, they would still need to come up with an additional $396,422. Members of the audience found this odd since the school had asked for $3.1 million from the faculty on Monday and the faculty gave back that same amount. Since the faculty gave what was asked for, either the school is fudging with the numbers or they already planned on such a deficit. Freeman then kept going on and on about where they could find the money. Cries from the audience included "administration!" and "reserve!". When he said they would need to raise tuition by $2 (completely ignoring all the data handed to him that night or considering any other options), many students cried out something along the lines of "fine, do it now!" Students I talked to would rather just give up the $24-36 increase a term that most full-time students would fall into and not have their term interrupted, graduation interrupted, etc.

Shields brought up the parking fee again, saying he still is not comfortable charging it. Russell agreed. Freeman then pointed out they would then need the income to cover the budget hole that money would have plugged. But this is all based on flawed numbers and high assumptions. They are assuming almost every single student on campus will purchase a permit. Their budget says they will bring in $762,500 from the $25 permits. Divided out, that is 30,500 - that's about how many students we have on campus. All of that is supposed to come from about 9,000 permits sold each of the three major terms - for 2,500 parking spaces. In 2012-13, they expect the revenue to go up even more - to $880,000. They say that Portland Community College made about $2 million through parking fees last year. That's a college with more than twice as many parking spaces as MHCC, three times the enrollment, and better utilization of their campus on evenings and weekends. MHCC never had the chance to make the $762,500 they are expecting. Based on how many students have to park elsewhere or walk to campus, I have a hard time believing that it will be much more than half that number. After the expenses of the program, it would barely make any money the first year. Which means we'd still be in a budget hole and we'd be charging students and the community to park on campus.

So once again, Freeman starts going on about how removing the parking fee would be covered and again brought up another $2 to cover the budget hole. And again the audience yells "cut administration!" But all Freeman could focus on were tuition costs and passing along their budget hole to the students.

So let's add this up. A $6 a credit increase already in the budget. $2 to cover the small difference in the faculty and school's budget proposals. $2 to not have a parking fee. So we're at $10 a credit hour more. All the while the faculty has given in on just about every economic point in the contract. I thought the school said we needed a $15 increase if they accepted the proposal where it was at months ago (when the two sides were millions apart on the faculty costs). So instead we could end up with a $10 credit increase and nothing to show for it - faculty gets nothing, we see no added services or increases, and instead see program cuts and faculty layoffs. When will they start being honest - they don't want to cut administrative costs, they don't want to cut pet projects, and they want the 27% of the budget that accounts for full-time faculty to eat 60% of the budget hole with the other 40% coming from students in the form of higher tuition and fees. That apparently the purpose of the college is to give contracts to friends, administrators positions making $120,000+, and to give the board what they want - not what the community or students want.

They keep telling us students that we are their most valuable resource - you bet we are. And that is because of what is in our back pocket or purse - our wallet.