"The budget situation has taken a turn for the worse…the news for community and technical colleges is not good." Green River President, Rich Rutkowski, said in a campus email to the Green River Staff.
Both the Senate and now the House of Representatives have released operating budgets with deeper cuts than Governor Gregoire's 4.3 percent budget cutbacks released in December for the 2009-10 year. Stimulus money is already taken into account, but each bill amounts to a daunting change for Green River.
The Senate budget proposal was a net reduction of 7.9 percent for the first year and 6.4 percent for the second year. This amounts to $2.8 million for 2009-2010 and 2.2 million for the 2010-2011.
The House of Representatives released their budget proposals March 30th proposing a net reduction of 7.7 percent for the first year and 14.6 percent the second year. The House's proposal equates to about $2.7 million for 2009-2010 and $5.1 million for 2010-2011.
The process is not finished yet. There is still a conference committee that will convene in the next two weeks to compromise the congressional budget proposals.
In the mean time a Direct Report group comprised of numerous administrators on campus will take functional area reviews. These Direct Report members will be assessing every aspect of the current budget throughout April and refer back to the President with a new strategy to address the upcoming budget release. This will be done around the same time as the conference committee adjourns.
Initially, it was planned to find alternative ways to cut 25 units of $60,000 based off of Gregoire's proposal to avoid as many layoffs of GRCC personnel as possible. $60,000 is approximately the cost of a salary and benefits.
At this point of balancing the school's budget, there is a need to find ways of potentially cutting up to 85 units of $60,000.
Director of public information, John Ramsey, is one member that is on the Direct Report group. Ramsey thought that it was still premature to cut back on any programs until a clear figure was announced from congress.
According to Ramsey those handling the budget are also trying to have the least amount of impact on instruction or classes.
"That's what we are really trying to protect," Ramsey said.
Ramsey hinted about some alternatives that were being considered.
The first one he mentioned was not spending budget money on non-instructional purposes, making do where the campus would have traditionally made purchases. One example he offered was not purchasing updated employee and administrative technologies and computers.
He applied a similar concept to his own department a month ago. In advertising he plans to reduce the number of the 200,000 schedules printed and printing the summer schedule together with the pre-fall schedule.
You might not hear many more GRCC jingles on your favorite radio station as you did before.
Ramsey admitted that he would have to rely on fellow business partners like radio stations to be flexible in finding creative ways to cut corners.
Another major alternative Ramsey said was being considered is leaving vacant positions empty on staff. He gave the facilities department as an example.
Bart Dowd, the facilities support supervisor confirmed this hiring freeze taking place in the beginning of the year. Dowd said that the frozen positions include two custodial positions and a grounds keeping position.
During Spring, the busiest season for the facilities department, Dowd said that his department is adjusting to the challenge by delegating duties with larger areas of responsibilities.
"[We are] doing more with less," Dowd said.
Dowd said that his department is relying on student assistance and is cutting spending. Maintenance will always be needed but they will refrain from making other purchases.
Both John Ramsey and Bart Dowd demonstrated how it is every department's initiative to adjust where they want to trim.
"Every area of the institution, everything, is still on the table," John Ramsey said.
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