A&S Planning and Budget Commmittee Minutes Jan 19 1999
- Members attending:
- George Barnes
- Ginger Brown (Staff Rep)
- Julia Dietrich (ex officio)
- Stephen Edgell
- Robert Kimball
- Nathan Schwartz (Chair)
- Wiley Williams
- Visitors attending:
- Randy Moore (Dean)
The minutes of December 10, 1998 were approved.
The next meeting was set for Thursday, February 4, at 1:00 in a place to be announced. Please note that this is a change from what was previously announced.
Randy Moore reported that the upper administration is considering a 5% average raise for faculty and staff this coming academic year. The central administration would provide funds to cover 4%, and the units would provide the additional 1% through reallocation of continuing annually renewable funds (CAR). This would require nearly $300,000.00 be reallocated in the A&S; budget.
One option that might be possible would be for the College to not give its faculty and staff the full 5% raise. Randy spoke in general opposition to this, noting that we are well behind in salary now and it would not be good for our College to get less than people in other units. The Committee agreed.
Randy noted that there are three general categories that the money could come from: lecture lump sum, supplies, and salaries.
Lecture lump sum currently has around $1,800,000. Thus the cut would be about one-sixth. This pool has the +20 faculty money as well as the part timer funds. Randy noted that he would like to protect the +20 commitment. That would mean any money from this source would have to come from the part timers' sections. If all the $300,000 were taken from this source, it would mean offering over 100 fewer sections in the College each year.
Supplies, including travel and research funds, are already stretched to the breaking point from previous cuts and zero growth over the years. The travel and research budgets are now so small that eliminating them entirely would cover only one-third of the needed amount.
The only way to cut permanent salaries would be to not fill some vacant positions. It would take about 6 to 8 such positions to provide the entire required amount. Cutting faculty lines would not guarantee returned money, since the central administration already captures these. This would also reduce the number of courses offered, but not nearly as much as cutting part timers.
The Committee considered a recommendation to take some from part timers and reduce some faculty lines. However, it was noted that cutting faculty lines would also reduce scholarship and may never be made up within the College. Further, it greatly weakens our continuing argument that we are understaffed. We are also under a mandate to reduce our dependence on part time instructors. Reducing faculty rather than part timers works against that mandate. It seems that the best of several bad options is to obtain the bulk of the funds by reducing the number of courses offered by reducing part time instructors. The Committee made this recommendation to the Dean.
It was also noted that the upper administration is favorable to cutting the number of pre-college courses that we teach. If we must cut courses, it is best to cut these courses. While the funds for this are in the transitional studies unit, if cuts were made here they would not need the money and it could be given to A&S; so that we would not have to cut the 100 or more college level courses.
It was suggested that the College needs to have consensus on a long term plan for how it is going to shrink as the number of students shrinks (and hopefully the quality goes up).
That concluding the business, the Committee adjourned.
Respectfully submitted, Steve Edgell
