By Gustavo Buenrostro
California Community Colleges will have a new budget plan to work with beginning July 1st.
The new budget system provided by the California Governor’s office is attempting to add more money to community colleges throughout the state.
The current system schools use for budget is based on the full-time enrollment of students.
The new system will have three different aspects that the budget is base.
The first will still be based on growth, meaning the full-time enrollment of students.
This will make up 50 percent of the new budget.
The second will be for disadvantaged students who receive the Board of Governors Waiver and the Pell grant, which the state is calling supplemental.
This will make up 25 percent the budget.
The last 25 percent is based on student success. Success includes certificate of completion, transfer rates and the amount of time it takes students to complete their time at East Los Angeles College.
ELAC President Marvin Martinez says that 80 percent of the United States has already moved to a outcome-based formula.
According to Martinez, the state wanted to get involved after seeing that students were not graduating fast enough, so the state decided to make legislation themselves. Martinez said the biggest shock was how quickly the new plan is happening.
“I’d rather have the new formula get here faster than stay with the current formula,” said Martinez.
However, nothing is set. The state is running simulations to see how the new budget plan will affect schools.
A recent simulation hosted by the Community College League of California, showed that the Los Angeles Community College District can gain up to 38 million.
However, that simulation was unofficial and the state simulation run by the governor’s office will take place this Friday.
The district would then have to allocate, or distribute, the money to each of the nine schools in the district.
According to ELAC Vice President of Administrative Services Myeshia Armstrong there would also be a challenge to allocate the money to all the services in the school.
This last simulation of the budget is just preliminary and Armstrong says that there still needs to be some clarification.
While the new budget plan looks good for LACCD, it can also mean that another school receives less or didn’t get any at all.
If that is the case, then the state would have to allocate money from other districts so the budget can be distributed properly.
More simulations are planned throughout the semester but Armstrong says that the new budget could possibly benefit the school.
Martinez says that the new plan is better suited for the school because it parallels what the school is doing for the students.
He says that the school needs to do business different in every way so that the plan can be used to its fullest effect.
Martinez is one of eight college presidents in the state that is working and analyzing with the new program.
He wants to add other populations to the program like DACA students, foster youth and veterans so the school can get more resources to help its students.