Our guiding principle, from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been to protect the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff while continuing to fulfill our mission. Moving to a remote learning modality in a matter of days required an unprecedented effort from our faculty. I am profoundly grateful to everyone at the college who contributed to facilitate this extraordinary transition from face-to-face instruction to remote learning. I believe that this tremendous accomplishment ensured that our core mission would continue. I want to thank and acknowledge the dedicated staff—including custodial, facilities, IT, dining, residential life, and public safety officers—who continue to come to our campuses and sites to serve our students, support our faculty, maintain our buildings, and keep us safe.

There has been a lot of discussion about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the state’s economy and the district’s finances. As we move toward the end of the semester, I want to share with you our plans for the summer and coming fiscal year, which begins on July 1.  

Summer 2020 Activities and Programs

We believe that it is our responsibility to continue to take prudent steps to help to inhibit the spread of the virus and keep our faculty and staff safe. In order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 this summer, we are taking these steps:

• All credit summer courses will be delivered online. The campuses and sites will continue to be closed to the community during the summer except for services that are deemed essential. All department heads will identify mission-critical functions or services that require people to report to our campus or sites.
• We want to continue to reduce the number of employees physically present on our campuses and sites to help mitigate the spread of the virus.  Therefore, all employees who are able to work remotely via telecommuting or other methods should continue to do so. 
• The College will notify students and employees about the essential services occurring at the college.

Fiscal year 2020-21 Budget

We have made it a standard practice to develop budget forecast scenarios based on available budget assumptions and share those forecasts with the college community on a regular basis. Although those scenarios are forecasts based on assumptions available at the time the forecasts are developed, we have been able to anticipate potential budget challenges and then take proactive steps to address the challenges.

The unpredictability and duration of the pandemic, and the resulting economic impact on the state’s budget, caused us to revise the multiple budget forecasts we developed last year. We prepared revised forecast scenarios including a potential flat budget, a flat budget with a 1% COLA, a budget with a 4% deficit, and a budget with an 8% deficit.  This approach aligns with the guidance from the Chancellor’s Office, the Community College League of California, the State, and community college Chief Executive Officers and Chief Business Officers.

Vice President Morrison and I discussed the revised forecast scenarios with the CRFO, CSEA, Academic Senate, and Management Council leadership earlier this week. What follows is a brief summary of each scenario.

• Scenario 1 Flat budget: The signals coming out of Sacramento indicate that the Legislature is looking at providing a “workload budget” to community colleges in 2020-21.  That means that we may receive the same revenue in 2020-21 that we received in 2019-20. The result of this scenario is a 5.6% fund reserve.
• Scenario 2 Flat budget with a 1% COLA: The state also signaled that a COLA of 1% or less might be included in the final budget. If that holds true, our current bargaining agreements stipulates that the COLA will be passed to employees. The result of this scenario is a 5.6% fund reserve.
• Scenario 3 Four percent decrease: This budget scenario assumes a 4% reduction in our revenue in 2020-21 and shows a decrease in the fund reserve from 5.6% to 1.9%.
•  Scenario 4 Eight percent decrease: This scenario assumes an 8% decrease in our revenue and results in a negative 1.7 fund reserve.

No source of revenue for the district—state apportionment, dorm and dining monies or other auxiliary funds—will go unaffected. I believe that it is in our best interests to exercise the utmost prudence and caution to address the looming challenges in our general, categorical, and auxiliary budgets. While preparing for all scenarios, we are hoping for the best and remain committed to moving forward as a community.

The Cabinet and I will take several proactive financial steps to address our predicted budget challenge.

• Permanent Position Hiring: We are going to freeze the hiring of all new and replacement permanent general fund and grant/categorically funded positions District-wide.
• Temporary/Contract Services: We intend to pause the hiring of temporary and contract services with exceptions for essential services.
• Discretionary spending: We are freezing discretionary spending effective May 5.

In implementing the steps outlined above, my goals are to preserve the vast majority of staff positions at CR, maintain the academic strength of the District, improve efficiencies in our general and categorically funded areas, and maintain at least a 5% fund reserve. While the steps we will take will be demanding and additional financial steps may need to be considered in the future, I am confident that there are better days ahead. We will overcome these challenging times because of the talent, resilience, and determination of every member of the CR community.