Fear The Academic Budget

California has 103 commmunity colleges. Two years ago the state's budget went in the toilet, and most community colleges cut way back, but my school survived, having spotted the looming crisis and taken steps to guard against it. We had a $10M surplus, the largest in the state.

A year ago that surplus was down by 10%, but we were in a budgetary hog heaven, so we switched to a new billing and student tracking system, which, I must say, already looks incredible from an instructor's perspective. That said, the system was supposed to run $5M. Sadly, this is an academic budget, and we ran over by $4.5M. With a little help from sources not yet made clear to me, we managed to get $3M into the red.

English was not supposed to have an opening this year, but we sneaked one in late. It and one other are not yet filled (as of the time of this post, the position has been closed for 13 minutes). Sadly, the budget situation is such that we are now looking at not filling either of the unfilled positions this year. Worse, four people are slated to be cut from the full-time crowd, and that has GOT to sting after (probably) one year.

So there is it. The budget tanked, and the opening I had hoped would give me a real shot at becoming tenure-track in the school that has kept me working steadily since two weeks after my degree posted has vanished for another year. These things happen, and I felt bad as my department chair kept apologizing to me yesterday. He didn't cause it, and while it is bad news, it certainly is not the end of the world. I've got time to develop more material for my CV before next summer, unless my alma mater hires me, and I have my 60% load for Fall. I'll be up a pay grade and may add a school or two to my schedule. I'll get by.