Educating More Students & Taking Care of Employees!

By Yolanda Salcido

Long-term Planning & Fiscally Prudent: Southwestern College is educating more students than State funded,hired more staff & faculty, added class sections and took care of our employees despite the State's worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression.

The State of California owes its community colleges $393 million dollars. In July, it missed a $116 million payment; in August, it missed another payment worth $277 million. The lack of funding is crippling campuses across the state, forcing colleges to dip into savings or borrow to keep offering classes, pay employee salaries and other expenses. Not at Southwestern College.

Because of responsible fiscal and resource management. Southwestern College found a way to educate nearly 700 students for which the state is not compensating it. The college also added 34 additional class sections for fall 2010."

Source: Excerpt taken from Southwestern College Newsletter to College Community, October 2010 (http://www.swccd.edu Section: "Smart Budgeting")

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In addition to educating more students than State funded and adding additional class sections, Southwestern College has continued to hire new faculty and staff to meet the needs of our students:

"New Faculty, New Staff

The Board was proud to hire 11 staff members during its meeting, giving our students a chance to learn from some of the brightest minds in their fields. The Board hired six new faculty and five classified staff members (three new hires and two replacements)."

Source: Excerpt taken from Southwestern College Governing Board Newsletter to College Community, dated August 2010 (http://www.swccd.edu Section: "New Faculty, New Staff")

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Despite the fiscal challenges, Southwestern College has has continued to protect contract employee's jobs and benefits. There have been no mid-year cuts, lay-offs of full-time contract employees or furloughs, in addition to meeting the student's educational needs:

"At our September meeting, the Board approved the College's fiscal year 2010+2011 budget.Despite continued statewide economic problems, we passed a budget that puts students first.

The budget includes:

• substantially the same educational opportunities for students;
• funding for the same number of students served last year + more than 700 than will be funded by the State for the second consecutive year;
• a 7 percent Governing Board reserve balance, per Governing Board policy;
• fully disclosed and reserved amounts to fund vacation, sick and faculty banked-time leaves;
• funding for salary step and column increases for all eligible employees;
• funding for faculty sabbatical leaves; and
• funding of additional $200,000 to pay for increased employee health benefits.

Every decision we make and dollar we save is about creating more resources to invest in our students' education. We thank our students, faculty and staff for their efforts to work together in the budget process towards that goal.

Yolanda Salcido Governing Board President"

Source: Excerpt taken from Southwestern College Governing Board Newsletter to College Community, dated September 2010 (http://www.swccd.edu Section: "College Community")