This month, while budget talks continue on the district level with ears toward Sacramento for the latest developments, the task of labeling areas for possible cuts at De Anza College will largely fall to the personnel of its three main budget components: Instruction, Student Services, and Finance.

Over the next two weeks, Instruction’s faculty and staff, who will deal with the brunt of the reductions, will analyze years of enrollment trends and prioritize “high productivity” courses and sections in planning their budget proposals to the Instructional Planning and Budget Team on May 19 and 20.

The “productivity” of a class, essentially a ratio of the number of students served per faculty member, will be key in assigning over $9 million in losses Instruction faces in the upcoming school year. Low productivity sections are prime targets for cuts, though administrators will likely avoid eliminating low enrollment basic skills courses and vocational programs deemed vital to the college’s mission of serving diverse student populations. High productivity courses not only are self-sustaining but also contribute financially to those smaller courses and programs.

As hefty as the numbers already seem, the reduction estimates that department and divisions have to work with will remain imprecise until the state finalizes its budget in June.

“Cuts could be more, could be less,” Physical Education and Athletics Dean Rich Schroeder said. “We hope it’s going to be less—if it’s more, I have no idea what we’re going to do as a college. We’re just not going to be able to survive.” 

Given the losing battle Governor Jerry Brown is waging to put tax increases on the June ballot, California’s community colleges aren’t holding their breath for reductions to go down. However, planning for too great of a loss could trigger a whole new assault on colleges’ finances.

According to Academic Senate President Gregory Anderson, community colleges could endanger themselves by initiating a “death spiral” of cutting too many programs and services, having enrollment numbers fall below the state-mandated “cap,” thereby losing state funding, and then resorting to even more cuts and turning away more students. Currently 1,300 students below cap, De Anza stands to lose $6 million in state funds for the 2010-2011 school year, according to estimates from the Office of Finance and Educational Resources.

“We’re not going down that route,” Anderson said. “We’re still going to do the best we can to offer as many opportunities to students as we can.” 

Schroeder aims to apply the same philosophy to his division’s budget decisions. Like other divisions, Physical Education and Athletics will be careful to spare as many courses required for transfer and graduation as possible. Moreover, the division must deal with unique constraints such as the Title 9 mandate that the male to female ratio in athletics programs reflect that of the general student population—a significant factor in deciding which teams can be cut. The division also hopes to avoid losing student athletes to other colleges’ sports programs in the event that they are not offered at De Anza. De Anza’s full-time enrollment requirements for student athletes tie participation in sports with enrollment in other divisions, multiplying the impact of their loss on the college’s revenue.

“It’s a very stressful situation for people,” Academic Senate Vice President Coleen Lee-Wheat remarked, “because now it’s coming to their front door instead of somebody just saying ‘boom’ this is what’s going to happen… Now [those making budget decisions] have to say, ‘This is what I think is best for my students’ and then convince somebody else.”