|
I am compelled to speak up in favor of Proposition 92.
For several years state legislators have rattled their swords regarding the governance of community colleges – the proposal has been to develop a state board to oversee the community college system eliminating local control of the individual districts. The founding premise of the COMMUNITY college system is to provide local supervision of the college system and responsiveness to the needs and ambitions of the community that supports it. The community college is charged with providing educational support and assistance in partnership with community government and local business. Rural California colleges would suffer most under a centralized state governance. Proposition 92 guarantees a stable system of independent college districts.
The California Community College system is under funded, the current apportionment of funds, set by Proposition 98 dictates that 11 percent of education funding be directed to community colleges and 89 percent be directed to the K-12 system. Historically the legislature has been very cavalier in suspending this agreement – over the past 10 years funding for community colleges is in arrears over $4 billion. Proposition 92 separates the Community College system from the K-12 system and sets minimum levels of state funding based on COMMUNITY COLLEGE growth instead of being indexed as a percentage of K-12 population. California ranks 45 out of 49 states in support per full-time student revenue.
In the 2003-2004 budget legislators doubled student enrollment fees for community colleges as a source of revenue for state budget deficits. Funding to community colleges was also decreased by a similar amount. Student enrollment dropped by more than 300,000 students statewide. Our college district fared better than most due to effective management and planning but, we were forced to layoff faculty and staff and cut programs to balance our budget. While students paid twice as much to attend college we were forced to provide fewer classes, less supportive services, fewer opportunities. Proposition 92 will stabilize funding, secure student access, and allow our local governing board to be proactive in planning programs that support our community needs. That is far better than the current process of holding our breath, each year, wondering if we're going to receive funding.
A healthy community college system helps to grow California's middle class and bolsters the state's economy, offering every California resident an opportunity to attend college. California community colleges provide an education for 2.5 million students compared to the 180,000 students in the University of California system and 380,000 students attending California State Universities.
California's community colleges partners with labor to provide 160 apprenticeship programs – 250,000 apprentices on 35 campuses. Forty colleges, including the Yuba Community College District, provide Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) academies. Another 64 colleges offer fire technology programs to train our firefighters. Nearly three quarters of registered nurses in California received training through their community colleges.
A healthy California Community College system supports diversity and offers higher education to students who might otherwise be unable to afford college. There are 463,000 Latino students, 118,000 African-American students, and more than 250,000 students of other minorities attending community colleges. This represents a higher minority population than the UC and CSU systems combined.
Proposition 92 lowers the current fees to attend a community college to $15 per unit, placing a college education in the reach of every Californian. It limits increases in student fees to cost of living adjustments. It provides stable funding indexed to student enrollment. The California Postsecondary Education Commission is projecting that there will be 375,000 to 525,000 additional applicants to the community college system over the next three years. We need to be funded and prepared for this surge.
Vote YES on Proposition 92.
Mark Bredt is District 4 (Lake County) Representative on the Yuba Community College District Board of Trustees. He lives in Clearlake Park.
Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
We all support community colleges, but Proposition 92 is flawed and will cause more problems than it claims to solve.
Proposition 92 will worsen California’s budget deficit and threaten funding for other critical programs.
* Proposition 92 would amend California’s constitution to lock in a huge new state funding mandate for community colleges – with no way to pay for it.
* The California Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the increased spending created by Proposition 92 will reach nearly a billion dollars in the first three years.
* California’s chronic budget deficit – projected to increase to over $14 billion in 2008 – will be aggravated by Proposition 92. The Governor is already calling for 10% cuts to state programs across the board – including to public education!
* Under Prop. 92, lawmakers will be forced to decide how to pay for the new spending. They could raise sales or income taxes, levy new taxes on other items, or cut funding to health care, programs for the disabled, or education funding, including K-12.
* The $6 billion deficit in 2007 led to deep cuts to social services, including programs for the homeless and mentally ill, and the disabled community. Also cut were children’s health outreach programs and clinic care for uninsured children and adults. What other social services will be cut in 2008 as the budget is further aggravated by Proposition 92?
Proposition 92 claims to improve access, but doesn’t help low income students with costs at all.
* Proposition 92 does nothing to help low income college students with costs, as they already have their tuition fees waived. In fact, according to the state Legislative Analyst, about one fourth of community college students pay no educational fees at all. The California Community College Data Bank says fees were waived for 740,000 low and middle income students in 2005-2006. And a March 2007 study prepared for the Hewlett Foundation by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that 52% of full-time California community college students have their fees waived due to financial need.
* California community college fees account for less than 10% of the total educational costs for the typical community college student – with books, transportation, housing, child care and supplies making up the other 90% of costs. If proponents of Prop. 92 really wanted to make a difference, why didn’t they address the majority of costs and barriers to access that students face?
Proposition 92 expands bureaucracy, but contains no accountability or independent oversight.
* Proposition 92 increases state bureaucracy by creating an expanded state board and giving them “full power” to set salaries and other benefits for additional bureaucrats and administrators - all with no oversight.
* Proposition 92 mandates hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars with no accountability provisions to ensure the money ends up helping students. There are no guarantees that the money won’t be wasted on bureaucracy, administration and “overhead.”
* Proposition 92 requires no public audits and contains no penalties for misuse of funds.
The California Teachers Association, the League of Women Voters, and the California Faculty Association all urge your “No” vote on Proposition 92.
* Join teachers, community groups, employer, small businesses and taxpayers in voting “No” on Proposition 92. To join the coalition and for more information, please explore our site.
Los Angeles Times:
Community colleges do need more money, but this is ballot-box budgeting at its worst.
January 7, 2008
Proposition 92 promises California's community colleges a stable funding source while lowering student fees. What could be wrong with that?
A lot. Community colleges certainly need more money, but Proposition 92 would lock the state into spending hundreds of millions of additional dollars that it doesn't have. Lawmakers would have no choice but to rob other higher education programs to meet the new spending commitment. This initiative represents the worst form of ballot-box budgeting, and voters should reject it.
Spending mandates like this one have become a recurring nightmare for California. It must have sounded like a good idea to voters in 1988 to require close to half of every state budget to go to K-14 education, including community colleges. But that measure -- Proposition 98, if you're keeping track -- has calcified 20 years' worth of budgets. Instead of giving voters a final say in education spending, it empowered groups with vested interests. The California Teachers Assn., for example, dictated how billions of dollars in taxpayer funds are to be spent over several budget years as a condition of dropping its lawsuit over education spending.
Backers of this new measure now want to seize a portion of the education pot for community colleges. They explain that young adults -- the colleges' traditional student base -- make up a growing segment of California's population. But if the dollars should follow the population bulge year to year, lawmakers must have more spending flexibility, not less. It would be foolhardy to mandate spending for decades into the future based on today's rapidly shifting demographics.
The state today faces a $14.5-billion shortfall that will prevent full funding of education in the coming year, but instead of providing relief, Proposition 92 squeezes the budget at both ends. It requires $300 million in new spending over each of the next three years but removes from the budget, in the form of student fee cuts, $71 million.
Fee cuts sound nice, but students who can't afford the current fees aren't required to pay them. In one recent year, 52% of community college students got fee waivers. Those who do pay enjoy the lowest community college fees in the nation at $20 a unit; Proposition 92 would cut them to $15. Students who avoid community colleges because of cost do so because they can't afford housing and books, not because of tuition. Meanwhile, federal funds to cover a variety of costs sit unused because the colleges do such a poor job of directing students to the aid.
Community colleges are the workhorses of California's education system, making up for high schools that fail to educate, preparing students for four-year colleges, training adults for careers, providing second and in many cases first chances at an education. They do need help, but they don't need Proposition 92. Vote no.
Legislative Analyst's Office
http://www.lao.ca.gov/ballot/2008/92_02_2008.pdf