Making sense of the Pierce College budget

him on her own.

district’s decreasing finances.

Erika Monteleone, 25, can’t take as many classes as she wants each semester because she can’t afford to pay for them.

“I haven’t even paid off the classes I’m in right now,” she said. “I don’t know how I’m going to register for courses next semester.”

On top of paying her tuition and books, Monteleone, who is in the Registered Veterinary Technician program, has to pay off the student loans she received as a vocational school student before coming to Pierce College.

She ended up defaulting on her loans—which renders her ineligible for federal financial aid—after she says she found out that her school was stealing the money.

According to Monteleone, the school used $9,000 of her loans and stole $13,000 of her Cal Grants.

“It scared me away from going to school when I found all this out,” she said.

Even as a part-time student, Monteleone is having difficulty paying for necessities in classes.

She says she even failed her medical terminology class because she didn’t have the book with her.

On top of being a student in debt, Monteleone is a single mother of a 2-year-old boy.

When he was still living with her—until the beginning of the semester—she had to take care of

She moved out to Los Angeles to live with her father, who was supposed to take care of her son while she was attending school.

“He decided to change his mind,” she said. Because she had to take care of her son after he got out of day care, she can only take courses at certain times each week.

General situation:

Following the passage of Proposition 30, which temporarily increases income tax on high earners and sales tax for seven years, the district will receiving $15 million in deferral relief and $3.9 in growth, according to the Final Budget for 2012-13 from the Office of the Chancellor.

Despite this, the district still has a $35 million shortfall in base revenue from this fiscal year.

For the 2011-12 fiscal year, the district has faced over $46.4 million in cuts, according to documents provided by the LACCD Chief Financial Office. This totals to approximately 10 percent of the district’s revenue.

The final budget submitted by former Chancellor LaVista to the district’s board of trustees for approval reflects a total of $3.47 billion.

“I got lucky with the classes I got,” Monteleone said. “If I didn’t get into the ones that fit my schedule I wasn’t going to be able to go to other classes.”

Monteleone is one of around 30,000 yearly students at Pierce that is affected by cuts to education in the Los Angeles Community College District: raised fees per unit, significant cuts to courses, and the resulting drop in enrollment.

The recent passage of the governor’s tax initiative, which partly benefits higher education across the state, helps alleviate the

What it means for Pierce

Pierce will be adding between 100 to 125 class sections between the summer intersession and spring semester, according to Kathleen Burke-Kelly, the college president.

In line with this, the college will have more seats for enrollees next year.

The process of adding sections is only in its planning stage, according to Burke-Kelly.

Through shared governance, the school’s recommending bodies are

Student survey encouraged

The Diversity Committee of Pierce College is looking for responses from all faculty, staff and students regarding the Pierce Campus Climate Survey.

The like for the survey can be found on their Facebook page.

Tutoring

With or without Proposition 30’s allocations, the tutoring center will continue its volunteering program, according to Crystal Kiekel, director of the Center for Academic Success (CAS).

“The volunteering program is here to stay,” she said.

Incident Report for November

11-25-12 A male student assaulted two students in the library. 11-25-12 Two male non-students attempted to carjack a male in Lot 1. The case is currently under investigation.

11-26-12 A bike was stolen from the Center for Sciences.

11-27-12 Students items were stolen from a North Gym locker. 11-29-12 A bike was stolen from the mall.

waiting for proposals from their sub-committees, like scheduling advisory and resource allocation.

After the academic senate and college council go through recommendations, they will proceed to offer solutions to the president.

“In the end the decision comes to me,” she said.

Burke-Kelly added that additional revenue from Proposition 30 is specifically restricted from being used for administrative costs, like the cancelled cadet program.

“They really have to be frugal on services. The money goes directly to students,” she said. She does say that the line between administrative and educational costs tends to be blurry.

“Part of the problem with the Educational Protection Act is that it doesn’t have a complete definition of what’s allowed and not allowed,” she said.

Cuts to each college

Budget slashes for each college under the LACCD are based on the school’s enrollment, or full time equivalent students—affected by the number of courses offered in a college. the estimated percentage to be taken out of the revenue is then given to the administration of each campus, where recommending bodies such as the college council and its subcommittees put forward solutions to balance the budget.

“We try to give as many classes to students, but it also has to do with being fiscal stewards,” said Rolf Schleicher, co-chair of the Pierce council budget committee. “We’re trying to make smart choices.”

Additionally, the schools have control over the specifics of the programs and entities they will be sacrificing in order to balance their budgets. This is also applied when the district gets additional funds, according to Vinh Nguyen, director of budget from the LACCD chief financial office.

The district, which is maintained through state funding, lays out its financial plan following the California budget. Information on

Pierce—the third largest campus in the district—has faced the third largest revenue loss, following Los Angeles East College and Los Angeles City College. Since 2009, Pierce has had to cut $10,525,962, according to documents.

“We’re trying to reduce all possible expenditure we can cut,” Nguyen said.

“The issue is that over the last two to three years, we’ve been cutting. There aren’t too many areas to make cuts to anymore.”