Budget reform now at City College

For most of my three terms on the Board of City College, I have been advocating for a more open process for budgeting. Related to the transparency of creating the budget is a clearer way of understanding what is contained within the budget. While the materials the College Board receives in approving the budget for the District have become better since I joined the Board in 2001, they are still inadequate if the Board is going to do our job properly in representing the public interest at City College.

Unfortunately, just as I have argued for a better budget process and documentation, for most of the time I have served on the Board of City College, others have argued against my reforms. The arguments of the majority of the Board (until now) have been that any changes to how City College creates and manages its budget would mean that the College Board is micromanaging, mistrustful of the College's Administration, ignorant that there is limited opportunity for changes to the budget with 92% of the budget going to salaries, etc, etc.

Fortunately, there is now a solid majority of College Board Trustees who reject the arguments of the past. We are prepared to open up budget planning, to create a culture that embraces widespread communication about the budget, and to establish timely and accurate assessment of the past fiscal year's achievements and challenges in setting out the priorities and parameters for the next budget. Those are all things that a fiscally-responsible College Board should have been insisting upon a long time ago.

As President of the Board of Trustees, I have appointed Chris Jackson to serve this year as Chair of the Board's Planning and Budgeting Council. I am recommending to Chris that he look for models of better community college budgets as he sets out to reform how City College does its budgets.

One such model can be found at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR. Lane received awards from the Government Finance Officers Association for a number of years for the way in which it presents its budget. You can see for yourself that Lane's Board and Administration understand the importance of clarity, a transparent schedule, and priorities and assumptions guiding the process from early in the calendar. While there are some things I would change, such as a link to a more highly detailed budget beyond what Lane's Board approves, they have it right in many aspects.

Here's the link to Lane's Budget Office site:

http://lanecc.edu/budget/index.htm

City College is a leader in community colleges and higher education in general. Our Board should lead the way to budget reform at City College that will be recognized in the way that Lane Community College has been. Given the state of the economy and City College's budget, our obligation to the people who elected us to represent them is even greater this year. Let's not let them down.