A Plan to Save $2 Million

Presented at the SCEA (faculty union) meeting on Thursday, October 8.

1. Reduce the Governing Board reserve by $1 million.

2. GASB: Our current budget will put an additional $500,000 into a fund for medical benefits for retirees. This fund already totals $1.3 million. In addition, our current budget will provide about $380,000 for this year’s cost of retiree medical benefits.

Skipping this year’s GASB contribution and funding this year’s cost of retiree medical benefits from the existing GASB fund will save about $880,000—and nearly $1 million will still remain in the GASB bank.

3. Items 1 and 2 will save $1.8 million. Salaries for management employees at SWC total about $6 million. A temporary 2% reduction in these salaries would free up an additional $120,000.

Taken together, items 1, 2, and 3 are equal to the current budget shortfall of $2 million. If this plan, or something similar, were adopted, not one adjunct faculty member would lose a job, not one full-time faculty member would lose an overload assignment, and most important, not one student would lose a class.