Budget is in the black Council properly manages money amid district-wide scarcity

Lynn Levit Features Editor

Pierce College has no deficit and will meet its 2013-2014 budget, according to the Budget Committee.

The body of the committee is made up of twelve members, co-chaired by vice president of Administrative Services, Rolf Schleicher and physics/astronomy professor, Don Sparks. The committee’s focus has helped control funds by limiting frivolous expenditures.

“We must make sure the budgeted funds are monitored from top to bottom and that there is an even line of communication to make sure there are no discrepancies or areas of over-spending,” Schleicher said.

The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) decides budget allocations for the nine colleges in the district from funds granted by the state of California.

“The allocation of funds to budget for 2014-15 is $57,676,126,”

Associate vice president of Administrative Affairs Bruce Rosky said.

Schools who operate outside of the realms of their budget are supplemented by money allocated from schools without a deficit, including the Pierce College Contingency Fund.

An issue schools are facing is a scarcity of funds and these campuses may now rely on Pierce

College for monetary support.

“The desire is greater than the money allocated, but the budget must balance,” professor Joe Perret said.

One budget discrepancy that Pierce College needs to further explore is the money allocated to the Library/Learning Crossroads.

“The Library is over budget by 3 times,” Perret said. “Why and where did the approval come from?”

The library needs additional full and part time staff during Library hours.

A major problem in distributing funds properly is the allocation model the LACCD uses. The model was recently changed to give more money to smaller community colleges and less money to bigger community colleges. This money is paid out from the Contingency fund.

Additional issues are associated with financial aid. The administrator grants money to those students with financial needs. If that student does not show up for class, the money must be returned. Students continue to abuse the system by misrepresenting their enrollment status.

Pierce does receive a small amount of income on campus from parking fees, the farm rental, leased land for the Metro bus line, and filming on campus.

The final adjustment for the budget must be presented back to the LACCD by April, so that the 2014–2015 approved budget can go into effect July 1, 2014 and run through June 30, 2015.

The program at Pierce receives as many as 700 applicants filing returns each year, filed on paper and online. In previous years, the volunteers would work both Wednesday and Saturday, but due to a shortage of available lab space they are limited to one day per week and are already operating at full capacity.

“I’m sure there are people that are coming on Wednesday nights that have been Wednesday night clients and finding it not open,” said Hugh Laughlin who has been volunteering with the program for over 20 years. “We won’t know until the end of the season how this has affected us.”

Sponsored by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the California State Franchise Tax board, the class provides certification and experience with simple tax returns at no cost for books or materials.

Students who speak Spanish and Farsi are participating this year, making it even easier for community members to get their returns filed.

“We try to service the community even if English isn’t their first language,” Chawareewong said. About half of the clients are repeat clients and many of them come back as students and volunteers, according to administrator Ian Hall. Only a small portion of these applicants are students.

“We do get Pierce students and we should be getting more of them,” said Francisco Ortega, a teacher at Northridge Academy High School and Cesar Chavez High School who volunteers with VITA after taking the Business 10 course. “We could even show them how to do it. We’re more than happy to do that.”

It is also a good experience for the students taking the class.

“Some of us do it to make a career out of it. Some of us, like in my specific case, we do it because we want to be able to manage our future business endeavors,” Ortega said. “It’s a very complementary course to take for any students out there for any major.”

Chawareewong stressed the importance of tax knowledge to students when applying for jobs and scholarships, both for the technical and real-world experience.

“In fact, it’s beneficial for any students because everyone, unfortunately, has to pay taxes,” he said.

This program will continue through April 5, in BUS 3218.