THE GUARDSMAN VOL. 159, ISSUE 6, APR. 15 - APR. 28, 2015 | CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO | SINCE 1935 | WWW.THEGUARDSMAN.COM | @THEGUARDSMAN | #THEGUARDSMAN | FREE
Enrollment drop threatens funding
City College faces upward of $350M in capital needs
By Marco Siler-Gonzales NEWS EDITOR
Illustration by Serina Mercado
By Michael Burkett STAFF WRITER
City College must increase enrollment numbers to avoid expiring state funding. Of the $201 million in funding from local and state sources that City College receives, $16 million comes from San Francisco’s Proposition A Parcel Tax and $38 million is state stabilization funds. FullTime Equivalent Students (FTES), a mixture of credit and noncredit students, generate the remaining $147 million. The Parcel Tax ends in 2020 and the state stabilization funds will end in 2017. FTES figures vary amongst City College officials, making it difficult to calculate the precise enrollment drop in recent years. The state counts 12 hours of credit classes as one FTE student and 525 noncredit hours as one FTE student. According to the March reports from Chancellor Arthur Tyler, the number of FTES is 28,000. The state sets the FTES number at 33,000 for stabilization funding purposes. Jeff Hamilton, the Marketing and Public Information Officer for City College, says the FTES number currently ranges from 24,000 to 27,000. Hamilton’s estimation puts the enrollment drop at 29 percent when compared to 2010 figures. Monika Liu, Associate Dean of Admissions and Records, has not
Even if enrollment numbers remain stable, City College will have a $2.5 million projected deficit by 2020.
responded to inquiries. A volunteer team of 200-plus faculty and students, spearheaded by English as a second language instructor Susan Lopez, is working to increase enrollment. Lopez says the drop in enrollment is approximately 37 percent. City College faces a deficit in operations costs in the near future if enrollment does not increase significantly. Hamilton, Tyler and Susan Lamb, vice chancellor of instruction, maintain that a drop in enrollment of only six percent has occurred from 2013-2014. When stabilization funds as well as the Parcel Tax ends, City College will have a projected deficit of more than $2.5 million if the number of FTES remains at almost 28,000 with funding. Shortly after he took over in November 2013, Tyler hired Interact Communications, a Wisconsin company, to manage City College’s marketing campaign. “There was no marketing plan for CCSF when I took over (as chancellor) and I initiated the con-
tract with Interact for marketing. So far approximately $1 million has been spent and it has stopped our ‘bleeding’ (extreme drop in enrollment) students,” Tyler said. Interact’s contract expired in
late 2014 and Special Trustee Guy Lease approved the renewal of the contract for an additional oneyear period, provided, costs do not exceed $1 million. City College’s difficulties are far from over, according to Tyler, but enrollment may increase to a point that, “...fiduciary responsibilities of the college will be met”. @mjburkettinsf mburkett@theguardsman.com
City College’s formidable task of budgeting and prioritizing over $350 million in deferred capital needs overshadows many campus wide interests, namely the supporters of the Performing Arts Education Center (PAEC). Chancellor Arthur Tyler has recently formed a capital planning committee to integrate vested faculty and student interests within the future capital developments of City College campuses. Fred Sturner, the director of Facilities Planning and Construction and co-chair to the planning committee, said the current capital needs could exceed $350 million. Sturner was hired in September 2014 to form a ten year master plan to budget capital needs. City College has apparently lacked competent budget measures for years, Sturner said. He said the school must focus on capital renewal and reinvestment in order to acquire a more accurate budget plan. “Everything has a different life cycle, so making just one average number out of it (the budget) never gives you an accurate representation of deferred maintenance needs,” Sturner said. Sturner said he intends to prioritize facilities directly affecting the health, life and safety of the City College population. The Performing Arts Center Coalition does not agree with Sturner’s priorities. During the March 25 PAEC teach-in at the Diego Rivera Theatre, many students and faculty expressed dissatisfaction with the administration’s vague explanation for monies purposed towards the PAEC. “If this had been the normal course of events of any project we have worked on, you would have occupied this building for five years now,” said Doug Tom, the PAEC’s leading architect who joined the project in 2004 along with 25 other firms. The PAEC’s sustainable structure was to utilize geothermal wells to heat and cool the building. The central plant for these pipes had already been constructed in the Multi-Use Building in 2010, Tom said. Sturner said the PAEC was not the only project set forth in the Community College District General Obligation Bonds in 2005. In these bonds, monies were purposed toward the construction of the Multi-Use Building,
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