Schools are going back to the drawing board to decide what to cut as the recession has higher education in a pinch. Only one thing is certain so far, some things must go.
Governor Chris Gregoire devised a plan in mid-December to make several large budget cuts to community and technical colleges. Green River is already feeling the effects.
The administration at GRCC was already planning for a 4.1 percent reduction out of the supplemental budget, but the governor is proposing a 4.3 percent cut instead. This would take a $1.5 million chunk out of Green River's budget. The next step is to decide what to cut.
"As a college we're trying to protect what's core to our mission, and students are core to our mission," said Green River's Director of Public Information John Ramsey. He explained that the college is doing all it can to keep students here and unaffected by the unfortunate time. The situation is less hopeful for some of the faculty though.
Already, some adjunct, or part time, members of the staff have been laid off. On top of the layoffs, the school is in a temporary hiring freeze until these budget concerns can be resolved in full.
There is also speculation of offering furloughs or non-paid, mandatory vacations to some part time employees. That is not certain yet though.
So far, the college has already scrapped some of its plans for the future. It has put a temporary halt to buying new supplies and equipment it planned on purchasing, and it has stopped paying for employees to travel between conferences.
130 classes were cancelled this quarter. They were mainly half empty classes or classes that were predicted to be at least half empty. In conjunction with that, advertizing to bring in new students has been severely lessened as well.
Despite those trends though, GRCC has seen a hopeful boost in student turn out for this quarter. Compared to last winter quarter, enrollment for this quarter is seven percent higher. An increase in student population is expected every year, but this is quite a bit higher than average.
"These are extraordinary times. I think there are more people coming back to school now," said Ramsey.
The school is seeing above average increases in enrollment for certain areas like worker retraining and running start. This is all despite the prospect that Gregoire is considering raising tuition by five percent each year for the next several years.
In all, she has proposed a six percent budget cut for community technical colleges from the biennial operating budget, which works out to be $1.8 to 1.9 million.
Just how GRCC will accommodate for the rest of the cuts is unsure at this point, but the circumstances are not promising.
"I think right now there's a lot of apprehension across the institution because, more than likely, there are going to be jobs lost. How many, it's hard to say at this point," said Ramsey.
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