The Camosun College board of governors recently approved a $114-million balanced budget for fiscal year 2014-15, with no cancellation of programs. There had been concern amongst programs such as the Music Professional Studies program, University Transfer, and the Early Learning and Care program that they would either face significant reductions or be cancelled entirely.
Camosun College president Kathryn Laurin says that while no programs have been cancelled, there will still be repercussions of the new budget, which was approved at the Board of Governors’ monthly meeting on May 5.
“There’s a 2.5-percent reduction going right across the college, so everybody’s going to feel something,” says Laurin, mentioning there will be some faculty and staff layoffs.
As well, there will be a reduction of one cohort in the Applied Business Technology program, and University Transfer students will face a reduction of sections that have lower enrollment numbers. The budget doesn’t impact the college’s ESL training (domestic ESL students had their funding cut earlier this year).
“Everybody is going to be impacted in some way, but what we’ve managed to avoid is actually reducing program offerings,” says Laurin. “We’re keeping students’ needs front of mind. So it’s as good an outcome that we could have hoped for under the circumstances.”
Laurin says that the college is “very proud” of the transparent process they used this year. They consulted both internally and externally and received lots of feedback throughout the process, she says.
“We tried to keep the internal community apprised as we worked through it,” says Laurin. “The result of that was that faculty and staff stepped up to the plate. Those areas where we were really looking under the microscope and saying, ‘We might have to contemplate reductions here,’ many of them came back to us with alternatives and said, ‘We could do X and Y instead,’ and those turned out to be actually much more plausible and allowed us to continue to run the programs without interruption.”
Members of the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) say the budget is good, but not without its negative ramifications.
“The college administration and board of governors have been required to make some incredibly difficult decisions,” says CCSS external executive Rachael Grant. “Although the budget that has passed is in some ways better than was initially anticipated with no programs being eliminated, students will still be negatively affected with higher tuition fees, reductions in services, and fewer class choices. The CCSS is deeply concerned by the lack of priority being given to public postsecondary, as the BC Liberal government continues to fail in increasing funding.”
Looking ahead, Camosun’s Laurin says that she’s feeling a great sense of relief today about the budget and about not having to cancel programs, but she admits that tomorrow “is going to bring us more challenges” as the college moves forward against constant funding struggles.
“Nobody wants to cut programs,” she says. “It’s a last resort. I can’t say to you that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and next year is going to be better. We’re not seeing any relief in terms of funding any time soon, so that’s our reality. So, going forward I think we’ve got a good process and we’ll do our very best to mitigate the impact on students but we’re really now getting backed into a corner.”