“If not this, then what?” was a prevalent question asked on Wednesday Oct. 29 at 3 p.m, when Bellevue College held its second Budget Town Hall for this quarter. Ty Bergstrom, the Executive Director of Finance and Auxiliary Services, and Bellevue College president Dr. David May gave an informative presentation called “Finance 102.” With slides such as “What is a budget? Why does it matter?” The bulk of the presentation was about where the college gets money from and how the money can and can not be used. The “4.7 million dollar budget reduction” was stressed as well.
Mr. Bergstrom emphasized, “If not this, then what? We can do anything, but we cannot do everything. And if we cannot do something, or we cannot give something up, what else are we gonna do? What can we give up?”
Dr. May went on to say, “We have to cut 4.7 million out of our budget. Full stop. That’s not an optional thing today. We have to know what that means by Nov. 17, when we present a budget to the board of trustees. As Ty said, this is a lot more than just numbers. This is about people, this is about the long-term health of an institution, our ability to fulfill a mission, and continue to move toward a vision of what Bellevue College can be in the future. It comes down to the possibility of choice. If we don’t cut this, what do we cut? Because the balance is 4.7 million dollars out of a budget.”
“This” refers to the proposal, now plan, to cut the Parent Education Program, cut the Continuing Education Program and dissolve the School of Business and Technology.
Next, the floor was opened to questions. One audience member asked Dr. May about something he had expressed at the Spring Budget Town Hall: “doing less, with less.” They wanted to know how faculty and staff would be supported to accomplish this.
Dr. May responded, “Yes, I did say we have to do less with less, because we have to do less with less. Most of us have been around higher ed for a while, and most of us have been told on more than one occasion that we have to do more with less… I have made it very clear to the vice presidents, the entire cabinet, that that can’t be the case. And those of you who are represented have folks on your side in that, who are going to help hold the college, the administration accountable to that.
To more directly answer your question, it’s not going to happen immediately. It’s going to have to be a conversation of ‘what are we going to set down?’ None of us has the ability to juggle infinite balls, but we do have to have the conversation of, ‘if this person is no longer here, what part of their job is somebody going to pick up? And if they are going to pick up that job, what part of that person’s job are we going to set down?’ It’s going to take a minute for this to shake out. But that’s the mandate from me. So if that isn’t happening, start having that conversation with the people right above you.”
Another question was asked about how the “Cabinet’s Guiding Principles” aligned with the dissolving of the School of Business and Technology, the cutting of the Parent Education Program and the cutting of the Continuing Education Program.
The “Cabinet’s Guiding Principles” were stated in the presented PowerPoint as no across-the-board cuts, mission and vision as decision anchors, open and timely communication, shared engagement and accountability, long-term strength over short-term reaction and “if not this, then what?”
President May answered, “It is the case that everything that we do here has value. Yes? Okay? It is not an across-the-board cut. It was a part of a long conversation about how we are going to get to a 4.7 million dollar reduction. Mission and vision as decision anchors? I think that is a larger conversation than we can have at this moment.”
The original asker clarified, “That is the [conversation] I think I want. You mentioned before that the ‘tension’ has to do with the 4 million dollar deficit. I mean, I agree, that is a scary big number. I can’t fathom. So I do empathize with the problems that you were hired to solve. But, I think we have a bigger tension problem around mixed messaging and understanding decisions that have already been made. We’ve spoken a lot about the future [in this meeting], which I appreciate, but the tension is a reactive response at this point. Which brings me to my original question.”
In response to this clarification of the asker’s question, Dr. May said, “I would draw your attention to the very last line on there,” The president says, referencing the PowerPoint slide behind him, the last line being ‘if not this, then what?’ “If we don’t wanna do this, okay, but the tension is, I still have to have a budget that is 4.7 million dollars smaller in six weeks. So we can have a great conversation about what the value of parent education is, but we can’t do it without that context. That, ‘if not that, what?’ That’s the challenge we are facing in this moment.
So, how does Parent-Ed align with mission and vision? We can have that conversation. Absolutely. And, if not that, what do you want to cut that you can see on this campus which does not align with mission and vision? And if we want to talk about the School of Business and Technology, one of the things that I hear all the time is there is too much administration. And Business and Technology are administration. So, we can talk about how things align and how they don’t align. But we have to recognize the hard reality of the tension that exists. It’s easy for everybody to say, ‘don’t cut that.’ I have a lot fewer conversations where people say, ‘Can we save that by reducing this?’”
Based on the complaints from the Faculty Union, the college has not been having any conversations about this with them. As the audience member mentioned, the tension for the faculty and staff is not the fact that the budget has to be 4.7 million dollars smaller, it’s that they were never really consulted.
At the end of the Budget Town Hall, Dr. Lindsay Haney, Faculty Union president, asked, “I was wondering when BRAC [Budget Review Advisory Committee] was consulted about cutting Parent Education, the School of Business and Technology and Continuing Ed? And what did they say?”
Dr. May responded to this question, “BRAC was not consulted about the programs you just asked about, Dr. Haney. Those programs were dealt with through other mechanisms. It was necessary for some reductions to be dealt with in different, smaller and confidential spaces. And so, that’s what we did.”
Though BRAC was created to demonstrate adequate budget transparency and shared governance, many showed concern about this statement. In the presentation, it was even stated that part of the Budget Development Process is to review their proposed plan with the Cabinet, and then BRAC provides advice and recommendations to the proposed plan. The “proposed plan” is no longer being proposed. The college has made it very clear that it is now the plan. Why was BRAC never consulted? Why would the college go against its own policy?
Dr. Haney informed Watchdog reporters that the “BCAHE [Bellevue College Association of Higher Education] has, unfortunately, had to initiate a grievance over the college’s failure to appropriately describe the proposal even within the context of the Labor-Management Committee.”
The Oct. 29 Budget Town Hall, while informative about what a budget is and where the college’s money comes from, raised more questions than it answered. The president expressed that he feels tension from the 4.7 million that has to be reduced from the college’s budget, but the faculty and staff’s tension comes from how the situation is being handled. The Monday, Nov. 3 Budget Town Hall will hopefully provide more answers.
Watch the full Oct. 29 Budget Town Hall here.
