The Ventura County Community College District lost $7.5 million in state funding this school year, and the Legislature could trigger even more budget cuts in December, according to district officials.

Last month the VCCCD board of trustees, which oversees Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura colleges, adopted a $133.5-million general fund budget for fiscal year 2011-12.

Salaries and benefits for personnel account for 86 percent of that figure.

Sue Johnson, vice chancellor of business services for the college district, said the $7.5-million loss of revenue—about 6 percent of the budget—was absorbed in the form of a “workload reduction.” This means the district received enough funding for 24,800 fulltime equivalent students while still allowing more than 30,000 to enroll in classes.

“We’re still serving a lot of students that we’re not getting paid for by the state,” Johnson said. “The real result of budget cuts means we have to offer less class sections, employ less faculty and serve less students.”

As part of the state’s attempt to balance a $26.2-billion shortfall earlier this year, community college districts across the state received an overall budget cut of about $400 million.

Of that figure, $110 million was offset by a $10-per-unit tuition hike—to $36 per unit—leaving community colleges with a statewide funding reduction of $290 million.

Besides the initial cuts, California community colleges face losing up to $72 million more in December if the state fails to generate expected revenues, Johnson said.

“If that money doesn’t come in, there will be (funding) triggers pulled in December,” the vice chancellor said. “We fully expect that the state will pull that trigger.”

For VCCCD, that would mean as much as $2 million more in midyear budget cuts.

Johnson said that if the cuts come in December, the district would not reduce faculty or classes in the middle of the school year. Instead, it would dip into reserves on a “one-time basis.”

Any amount borrowed from reserves would then carry over into the 2012-13 school year, when, Johnson said, the district expects to have funding reductions as high as $13 million.

It could also mean another tuition hike next school year, she said.

Demand for education

With unemployment rates hovering above 10 percent in Ventura County, more students than ever are seeking a place in the classrooms at the county’s three community colleges. Unfortunately, these students are being greeted with fewer resources and opportunities, Johnson said.

“When you cut the budget, you need to cut people, unfortunately,” she said. “A workload reduction means you need to teach less students, so you offer less class sections. The real negative is you’re taking less students at a time when the demand for education is at its highest.”

Johnson said VCCCD did not lay off any full-time faculty this school year but did lose about 3 percent of its 800-member parttime pool.

The district also had to eliminate class sections that were being taught by those part-timers.

“We eliminated the ones that are either in less demand or not deemed to be core,” Johnson said. “We’re not cutting classes like biology, math or English. As a transfer student or certificate student, you need certain classes to graduate. So we cut more of the ancillary classes.”

For students, this means higher competition for available class seats.

“We open registration and students are hitting their keyboards at 12:01 a.m. on their registration day trying to get their classes,” Johnson said. “We have a lot of that. The competition for space is much more than it has ever been before.”

Because of the demand for classes, the college district also instituted strict enforcement of tuition payment.

For the first time, VCCCD this year required students to pay for classes immediately upon registration or to commit to a payment plan.