Enrollment at Long Beach City College (LBCC) – as at many other community colleges in California – has been decreasing for years, with the exception of a few spikes here and there, according to Jeff Kellogg, president of the LBCC District Board of Trustees. With more than 90% of the school’s funding sourced from the state via a formula based upon student enrollment, the decline could cause problems for LBCC’s bottom line if something is not done.

 

Kellogg is the longest-serving boardmember, having been elected to an unprecedented five terms on the board beginning in 2002. He is also a 25-year employee of MAAS Companies, a Newport Beach-based firm specializing in program and project management, education and facility master planning, state reporting and more for California’s community colleges.

Jeff Kellogg, president of the Long Beach City College District Board of Trustees, is focused on ensuring the college develops an enrollment management plan to contend with financial challenges related to declining enrollment. Nearly all of the school’s funding comes from the state and relies upon the number of full-time equivalent students enrolled. (Photograph by the Business Journal’s Larry Duncan)

 

As of spring 2017, enrollment at LBCC was 25,574 students, according to Kellogg. The school’s high point for enrollment was more than 30,000, he said. Most of Southern California’s community college districts are experiencing decreasing enrollment or no growth, he noted. “At most community colleges, there is no growth. And if your funding formula is based on growth, there is your fundamental problem,” he said.

 

Decreasing enrollment is primarily due to area population trends. Kellogg pointed out that the Long Beach Unified School District’s current enrollment figure is about 74,000 systemwide. At its peak it was about 90,000, he said.

 

The State of California funds its 114 community colleges through its General Fund. The amount of funding each college receives is based upon the number of full-time equivalent students (FTES) attending each college, Kellogg explained. State regulations denote that if a college’s FTES number does not increase, its funding stabilizes at a certain level.

 

“They are given by the State of California a two-year period to come out of stabilization,” Kellogg explained. LBCC is currently in stabilization. “If you stay in stabilization beyond two years, the State of California locks you into that area. They say, OK, you have no growth, you are from this point forward locked into that rate forever. Which means the college is essentially doomed financially.”

 

LBCC receives less funding from the state each year. With costs increasing, it is now facing a structural budget deficit of about $6.7 million in fiscal year 2017-18, according to Kellogg. The total budget, based on a June 27 presentation to the board, is $137,673,361 – an increase of more than $10 million from the 2016-17 fiscal year budget. It must be approved in September.

 

About 87% of the college’s budget goes toward faculty and staff salaries and benefits, according to Kellogg. In California, the average portion of city college budgets dedicated to personnel is in the “mid-80s,” he said.

 

The tentative budget, which the board is still in the process of reviewing, calls for hiring 26 new full-time faculty members, one long-term full-time faculty substitute and one new academic manager at a cost of about $2.5 million.

 

“We’re not expanding. What is the reason behind hiring additional full-time faculty members?” Kellogg asked. “Are we required because of certain things that are out of our control?”

 

California community colleges are required to maintain 50% of their faculty positions as full-time, Kellogg explained. There are 344 full-time faculty members employed by LBCC, and 1,031 adjunct faculty positions. Adjunct faculty are not full-time and do not receive benefits. The 50% law applies to however many faculty are working at one time, he explained. “Average income at LBCC for those full-time faculty members is $93,202,” he noted.

 

Kellogg explained that just because positions are budgeted for does not mean they will be filled. “If we don’t need them, they won’t be hired,” he said. He pointed out that the college has opted not to re-hire for certain nonessential positions over the years as a way to reduce costs.

 

Other significant cost increases related to personnel include $3.9 million for benefits (due to an increase in positions and increase in payment rates) and $1.2 million to restore “previously reduced positions” and step and column increases, according to the June 27 budget presentation.

 

By the 2022-23 fiscal year, employer contributions to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System are projected to increase to 20.25%, according to the budget presentation. California Public Employee Retirement System payments are projected to increase to 27.30%.

Jeff Kellogg is serving an unprecedented fifth term on the Long Beach City College District Board of Trustees. He is currently the board president. Kellogg is a former Long Beach city councilmember and a former student of LBCC. He represents the district’s Area 1, which comprises North Long Beach. (Photograph provided by Jeff Kellogg)

 

Retirement benefit obligations represent an unfunded liability of $44.4 million for Long Beach City College.

 

Asked what the board’s plan was to tackle the issue, Kellogg said that it was tied to labor negotiations. “I will tell you that the retirement program we have for the college is outstanding. Which is not always what a taxpayer wants to hear,” he said.

 

One of Kellogg’s top priorities is ensuring the college has an enrollment management plan to project future enrollment and develop a strategy for exiting stabilization. The college does not have a strong enrollment management plan, according to Kellogg, who noted that the two vice presidents tasked with developing this plan are now no longer with the college.

 

“You address it through improving your efficiency, reducing cost, things of that nature,” Kellogg said of improving LBCC’s FTES funding. “What we are going to be doing is that we are going to become very aggressive on trying to increase our efficiency. What that means is more students in a class [and] having the students take more units.” If a student is enrolled in 12 or 15 units as opposed to nine, “that is a dramatic difference for funding,” he noted.

 

Last year, LBCC offered more than 6,000 courses, of which 18% were career or technical courses. The college’s average class size is 30 students, according to Kellogg.

 

To increase efficiencies, Kellogg indicated the college must ensure it is offering the classes students need when they need them. Times and days that classes are offered might be examined, he suggested.

 

Increasing access and affordability to classes is also on the board’s priority list, Kellogg noted. While students who qualify for the Long Beach College Promise are guaranteed a year of free tuition and the majority of students on the campus are eligible for free tuition through the California Community College Board of Governors, expensive textbooks remain an issue, he explained.

 

“My bigger issue is, we need to get students out quicker,” Kellogg said. He cited the 1976 film “Animal House” to make his point. “The late actor John Belushi had a hilarious line at the time. And when he was thrown off the campus, he said, ‘Seven years of college down the drain.’ We all sit there and go, ‘That’s pretty funny.’ You know what the average time of a student at a California community college is now? About six to seven years. . . . That’s why we are trying to reduce it, and we are trying to get it down to three or four years.”

 

While the board is limited in the actions it can make – it cannot, for instance, develop an enrollment management plan itself – it is the board’s responsibility to set goals to guide these processes, Kellogg explained.

 

The board’s goals are to implement the college’s strategic plan, to establish an enrollment management plan, to improve the long-range fiscal health of the college, and to improve access and affordability for students.

 

“If we don’t have a strong workforce in California, our economy is in jeopardy,” Kellogg said. “That’s why I love working with California community colleges. . . . [In] what we do, we can improve people’s lives through education. That is the one clear way you can make this state and community better, is to have an educated community.”