LTCC dealing with unstable financial forecast from state
By Kathryn Reed
Voters will decide if Lake Tahoe Community College must deal with “the good” or “the ugly” budget scenario.
“The model we are using now is the bad,” LTCC President Kindred Murillo told the board. It’s between “the good” which requires cutting costs by $800,000 and “the ugly” which requires cuts of $1.3 million.
“We want to be able to move either way,” she added.
If the education bill passes in November, it gives K-14 districts money that is owed them – not anything more. If it fails, it means another mid-year budget cut. LTCC took a $400,000 hit at the start of this calendar year.
If the voters say no, it will mean a workload reduction of 5.56 percent. The state pays community colleges based on the number of fulltime equivalent students. The 5.56 percent equals 105 FTES or $500,000. LTCC is now funded at 1,890 students. Just eliminating classes does not solve the problem. However, cutting some courses and putting more students into another class would help.
If that student number increases, the college gets no reimbursement from the state. In the 2009-10 school year, LTCC had 182.49 unfunded FTES. That is why administrators made a concerted effort to watch that figure and have kept it in line for two years.
The biggest problem is with the cut coming midyear; after the budget is adopted and after the school year has begun.
No matter the outcome of the November ballot measure put forth by Gov. Jerry Brown, the South Lake Tahoe college is looking at a structural deficit of $800,000. Half of that is because of increased costs of automatic salary increases via the step process and benefits.
In the last two years, LTCC has experienced a 15 percent increase in health and welfare costs. It’s expected to go up another 2 percent in fiscal year 2012-13. The college board, while well aware of the financial constraints, was presented with the grim picture in black and white during a budget workshop April 10. But the numbers presented are in a more readable format than the past 30-plus years.
Instead of a series of code numbers which most people have no idea what they mean, the line items are easier to read. For the first time restricted and unrestricted funds are separated on paper; they always had been in practice.
- “We need to rethink how we serve our students and our community.” — Kindred Murillo, LTCC president
Unrestricted funds account for about 90 percent of the budget.
“That’s what funds classes for students,” Murillo explained to Lake Tahoe News.
The board was shown the new format using the current budget.
The 2012-13 budget will be the first one Murillo has prepared. Those numbers are being crunched, with the board likely to start reviewing the budget for the next school year in May.
Murillo, after Tuesday’s meeting, said she spent that morning scrubbing the budget to find anything that could bring down the deficit. She said she found several little things – like someone being budgeted twice, issues with a grant, things that can be eliminated – that adds up to close to $400,000.
While every dollar is being scrutinized, it is not possible to curtail all costs. And with revenues flat or decreasing and costs going up, the gap widens.
In the past four years, the community college system has sustained a 23 percent reduction from the state.
“We will continue to do more with less,” Murillo told the board. But she added, “We need to rethink how we serve our students and our community.”
Automatic salary increases???? Private industry takes pay cuts and changes in health and welfare benefits. Why don’t our public employees do the same thing?
Tahoeadvocate is right!It is the fox garding the chicken coop.
10% cut straight across the board. Let the state employees throw some of their own money into their health care like normal people do. They’ve had it so good for so long, they are paralyzed at the thought of actually having to do for themselves.
One of the companies I referred to above did just that. A 10% paycut across the board, a changed health coverage plan where the employee went from paying $500/month with a deductible when they received services to a plan where they pay $800/month and they pay all costs until they reach $11000 out of pocket, then the insurance kicks in with no deductible.
Advocate, that’s still better than what a person without group coverage can get. We buy our own and the best we could do was over $1K monthly for a 70/30 plan with a $3600 deductible before that 70% payment kicks in. We pay 30%. That’s for 2 people. I’d have to check the plan to see at what point full coverage happens, but it’s pretty high. The only time I’ve reached that was when I had cancer. But it’s still well worth having. Got a bill from a lab that did blood work. Their bill was over $3,500. Insurance contract brought it down to $1,500. Our share was $550. Better than paying the original amount! And that was just one round of tests!
Hopefully one of these days voters will realize they are being tricked by the tax-and-spend politicians and bureaucrats, who are using emotional necessities such as education, public safety and health care as bait for their never-ending tax hike fantasies while ignoring all their other wasteful spending and mismanagement.
Voters instead should be given the opportunity to vote on ending unnecessary state agencies and programs; ludicrous government pensions, salaries, pensions, perks and abuses such as spiking; and similar reforms.
“We’ve already cut to the bone” and “It’s for the children” are two of the biggest lies that come from politicians’ lips. Others are not far behind.
For profit health care is stupid. Our worldwide ranks in “bang for the buck” quality results are terrible. But let’s keep marching down the free-market failure road like good little corpo-republizombies. The rest of the industrialized world laughs at us for being ripped off.
Smugley, WHY is “for profit health care” stupid? Why shouldn’t a doctor make a nice living after going to school for 12 years? Taking the risk of being sued by some fool who thinks he just hit the lottery because a doctor couldn’t fix what ails him?
If the quality results are so terrible, why do wealthy people come straight to America for medical treatment instead of staying home in their own countries?
Dear Dogwoman,
Your logic makes no sense. You believe doctors should “make a nice living” after going to school for 12 years, yet you would like to see the wages of the employees of the community college, many of whom have PhDs and have gone to college 12+ years to educate the next generation, be cut. Maybe you don’t know that LTCC faculty is among the lowest paid in the state. Maybe you have no idea what it takes to be a teacher. Maybe you should do some research before offering your uninformed opinions.
Dogwoman, you clearly do not get it. Drs. make a nice living, insurance companies are making huge profits. The U.S. health care cost are about 17% of GDP, nearly twice the amount of other industrialized nations (Canada, Europe, Japan, etc.) and we score the lowest in terms of health metrics (longevity, infant mortality, high levels of diabetes, cardiac problems, etc.) compared to these countries including a few countries way poorer than we are. So we pay way more for less. Wow that works. We have no chance to be competitive as long as we hinder ourselves. 70% of personal bankruptcy’s in this country are due to excessive health care cost. What we do is not working. Insurance companies are not the solution and they are the problem
Dogwoman, I can’t believe you ask why rich people come back to U.S. to get treated in the U.S. Because they are from here and they can spends gobs of money over their insurance, where the rest of Americans cannot. We have good drs and clinics, we just administer care poorly and unnecessarily in a very expensive manner. Our problem is delivery – rich people don’t care they simply pay.
Imagine if everyone in the US was well educated and healthy. It would be a very hard to control them, wouldn’t it. Keep em dumb, keep em just healthy enough to buy stuff and work. Consolidate power and wealth, the oligarchy is happy.
Okay, here we go. Doctors have to pay their own retirements, medical insurance, and disability premiums. They don’t get taxpayer guaranteed retirement at age 55 nor taxpayer funded medical insurance. If you figure all those benefits into what instructors at the CC get, they do quite nicely. I don’t begrudge them a fair salary. But if they think they should get more, let them try their luck in the open market like doctors do.
And Rick, your comment didn’t make sense. I didn’t say people come BACK for medical care. I said they come here from other countries for treatment. We have better trained physicians, better facilities, and MUCH shorter wait times than any country with government health care.
You guys are all very well indoctrinated. Must have gone through the public indoct–I mean skool–system.
Insurance is hideously expensive primarily because of government legislation. If you live in California you have to buy a California policy, not a Nevada policy. California legislates that X,Y,Z, and L MUST be covered, even if I only want to buy Z and L. I have no choice. It’s kind of like the cable bill. I really don’t think I should have to pay for Home Shopping Network, but I don’t have a choice. And it’s government who gives cable a monopoly too.
Yep, let’s let government fix some more problems.
Dogwoman, actually rich people from Europe get treated in Europe. Some rich people from the U.S. get treated in Europe because they will do certain procedures not done in this country. We are less healthy than Canada, Europe, Japan and a number of other countries and pay way more for being less healthy. I have a number a Dr. friends and yes they have cost associated with their business and most of them make very nice incomes. The stuff you quote is from right wing sites and not from what actually occurs in those countries. The vast majority of the citizens in these countries are very satisfied with their health care – Fox News would have you believe otherwise, but they are simply lying. As a scientist, I have a number of colleague from these countries and they all are very satisfied with their health care.
Indoctrinated? I think you do not know what this word means. The evidence does not support you.
We score poorly (when compared with these other countries) on virtually all important health metrics – FACT. We pay nearly twice as much in health care cost compare to these other nations – FACT. Maybe you consider FACTS indoctrination. Reading your comments reminds me of Don Quixote in the musical Man of La Mancha when he quips “Facts are the enemy of truth”. Quit listening to Fox News and do some unbiased research.
A lot of this is really about freedom of choice. If I’m risk averse, I might choose the security of becoming a teacher or professor with its steady pay and benefits and GREAT vacation time over the risk of becoming a doctor with all of its uncertainties.
When’s the last time a teacher got sued for giving a kid a lousy education?
We score VERY poorly against other countries academically as well, Rick.
Dogwoman, you again know little of what drives health care cost. I suggest you read some of Johnathan Gruber’s analysis. The Health Care Economist from MIT who is considered by all (regardless of what side of the politics you fall on) as the world expert on the economics of health care. He was the key adviser to Romney when Massachusetts developed their health care policy and has been an important contributor to determining how best to structure health care so we can reduce our overall cost. Your arguments do not carry water and inconsistent with the economics that drive health care cost. For example, California has the largest pool of clients for health care in the nation. In 2008 with the economic melt down occurred, Blue Cross proposed to raise rates over 40%, you know why, because young people with minimal health care needs choose to cut carrying insurance, thereby leaving only sick people in the system. Without requiring everyone to be in the pool (as Romneycare does in Mass) you cannot reasonably drive health cost down.
Another problem is that in the U.S. we allow Dr. to order expensive unnecessary test that do almost nothing to improve ones health.
Do your homework.
Enjoy, Rick
Agreed on the education. We are scientific illiterates when compared to the rest of the world. We score 40 out of 41 countries that were polled in the 2006 related to the population that accepts the scientific explanation of evolution. We are just above Crete, even Turkey scores better then we do. I once asked a Dutch scientist working for me if they suffered the same problems regarding evolution in Holland, she laughed and said the only people challenged by evolution in Holland were the Muslims. I am amused that the religious right is aligned with the Muslims, something that would drive them crazy. Even the Catholic Church (since the 1940s), not a paragon of liberal thought, accepts the scientific explanation of evolution. I can go on, climate change, etc. So yes, religious zealots and oil companies (the new tobacco companies) have greater influence then do scientist. Very sad.
Massachussetts’ health care system is broke too.
Massachusetts health care system is far better than most states, it can be improved on. Paul Krugman (a Nobel Prize Economist specializing in international economics (including trade theory, economic geography, and international finance) has provided a excellent review of the 3 basic forms of health care around the world. see, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html The Affordable Health Care Act is more closely aligned with the Swiss model. Again, we have done things rather poorly while the rest of the industrialized world has done things much better. We have good Dr and health clinics, lets realize we train good Dr and borrow the best from other systems and deliver it better and cheaper. I am baffled why the right wants to cling to doing things poorly. They mistakenly believe it preserves rights – which it only succeeds in enslaving the average American. Enjoy Rick