news
March
Budget
Madness
LCC BOARD WRESTLES WITH
HOW TO DEAL WITH DEFICIT GAP
By Henry Houston
P
ublic meetings aren’t exactly the best
way to spend a late Thursday night.
That didn’t stop about 80 students,
faculty and community members
from attending the March 14 Lane
Community College Board of Education
meeting to protest a proposed tuition
increase and the outsourcing of the college’s food
services and bookstore.
The college has to balance next year's budget by
dealing with a deficit of $8.5 million. It took the board
more than four hours to discuss and act on just three
action items aimed at closing that gap: tuition increases
ranging from $6-$38 per credit as well as faculty layoffs
and outsourcing the bookstore and food services.
The meeting was filled with tension, including Robert’s
Rules of Order blunders, spats and rolled eyes between
board members. Board member Matt Keating was
accused of grandstanding by two other board members.
The first time, he asked faculty in the audience to stand
and a segment to sit to illustrate faculty loss. The second
time, when voting whether to outsource food services,
he told the rest of the board to remember how he made a
compromise in his values to balance the budget, and they
should do the same by voting to raise tuition.
The heated meeting, which prompted a college official
to hand out candy during a break to ease tensions, ended
without definitive action to resolve the deficit. If the
board continues to delay on whether to increase tuition
to close the deficit gap, the college's default action is to
issue layoffs.
The college sent a general notice of possible program
and service reductions to employees during the week
of March 11. Employee contracts require LCC to issue a
notice by May 1 to faculty whose positions would be cut,
and classified employees must be given a minimum of 21
working days’ notice.
LCC officials have provided regular budget updates
to the board since last November, says Joan Aschim, the
college’s spokesperson.
The college spends $1.16 million in subsidies to support
slant
• In the March 4 edition of Editor and Publisher magazine, Eugene
Weekly was recognized as an honorable mention in the
newspaper industry journal’s list of “10 Newspapers That Do
It Right 2019.” The magazine looks to honor innovative revenue
strategies, impactful journalism and creative audience growth.
EW was recognized for teaming up with the University of Oregon
School of Journalism and Communication’s Catalyst Journalism
Project to break news, hold people in power accountable and
shine a light on possible pathways to make the community a
better place. You can find the stories at EugeneWeekly.com
tagged Catalyst Journalism Project.
LCC STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT NICK
KEOUGH ADDRESSES THE BOARD
the bookstore and food services. The board voted to allow
the college administration to outsource its food services,
which cut LCC’s expenditures by about $420,000.
Board member Phil Carrasco proposed requiring the
vendor to be local. However, Robin Geyer, the president
of the Lane Community College Employees Federation,
tells Eugene Weekly she has reservations that a private
vendor would want to come in if food services subsidized
by the college doesn’t make money.
“I’m not sure how any vendor can come in and do any
better,” she said. “The reality we need to recognize is
that food service is a service. The college needs to fund
the service. We need the service. We’re too remote not to
have food for our students. To not have it is a disservice to
the students and the staff who work here.”
The college will begin engaging with local vendors,
Aschim tells EW.
The college’s recommendation of outsourcing the
bookstore drew criticism from Meggie Wright, LCC’s
open educational resources (OER) librarian.
Before the board meeting, Wright told EW that she
was concerned about the future of OER at the college if
Barnes and Noble College were to operate the bookstore.
OER is course material that has an open license, which
allows faculty to revise and use it in courses and offers
students a free or low-cost textbook for class. LCC’s open
education is one of the most robust and oldest in Oregon,
she added.
Barnes and Noble College initially approached the
college in 2008. Ten years later, LCC reached out to
Barnes and Noble College and another out-of-state
company to explore partnership opportunities, Aschim
tells EW in an email.
What Wright feared was a contract that would
resemble the one Clackamas Community College signed
with Barnes and Noble College in 2018 to relinquish
control of the college’s open education program to the
private company.
“We’re concerned about the contract language that
restricts what our instructors are able to do,” she said.
“In the Clackamas contract, OER is specifically called
• You’ve heard of the luck of the Irish, but what about the luck
of the Emeralds? University of Oregon’s men’s basketball
team must’ve had our minor league team’s mascot, Sluggo, say a
prayer while they were in Las Vegas for the Pac-12 championship.
On Saturday, March 16, UO beat University of Washington, 68-48.
UO’s underdog tournament performance was similar to that of
the Ems. The Ems made it to the playoffs despite having a losing
record and went on to win the championship on a balk, leading to
the team winning in extra innings. UO’s team has some slim Vegas
odds in its future at the NCAA tournament, but, hey, when you see
150-1 odds, you send in some money.
• New Zealand’s mass shooting brought Eugeneans, and
people all over the world, out to support their Muslim friends
and neighbors after the tragedy. It also brought speculation that
out as something there’s a restriction on. So that’s really
concerning to our program.”
In addition, Wright expressed more concern about
how Barnes and Noble College would make revenue at a
bookstore in a college that is pushing for increased OER.
Encouraging faculty to use OER generally saves an
individual student $100 per class, she added.
However, the success of open education at LCC
has resulted in diminished revenue for the bookstore,
Tony Sanjume, the bookstore’s manager, tells EW. The
bookstore has been losing money because of its large
employee pool.
“The largest controllable expense in retail
operation is payroll,” he says. “I have not been given
the opportunity to transfer people out because that’s
a college decision.”
The college has already transferred out a few
employees from the bookstore. And, if Barnes and Noble
College were to operate the Titan Bookstore, the college
would have transferred out more employees.
Sanjume adds that sales have changed drastically
because of the declining sales of textbooks, which is due
to the success of the college’s use of OER. Usually at a
community college, textbooks are about 70 to 80 percent
of a store’s revenue.
“It’s great for the students, but the store needs to be
given an opportunity to adjust its operations so it can
create a model that’s gonna work with a more digital
course material assortment for classes,” he says. “OERs
are essentially free. A class that was using a $150 textbook
is using a $40 digital or even zero online or $15 photocopy
of class notes.”
The board voted 4-3 to not outsource the bookstore
right now. The bookstore must provide ongoing financial
updates to the board. If the bookstore continues to have
financial losses next year, the board will revisit whether to
outsource it.
The board plans to have a special session to hear from
faculty and students on how either an increase in tuition
or faculty cut would impact them. During that session,
the board can also vote on how to close the deficit gap.
the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric spewed in the U.S.,
particularly by the current president, may have contributed to the
racist beliefs of the terrorist who killed 50 people. The shooter
called Trump “a symbol of renewed white identity and common
purpose.” New Zealand immediately began to look at tightening
gun laws and canceled its largest gun show. We should take note.
• Enjoying the sunshine? Go home, Oregon, you’re drunk. We
just went from snow and ice to temps in the 70s in a matter of
weeks. While we celebrate the warmth, let’s let the crazy weather
remind us climate change is playing havoc with the planet. Adults
have failed, so the kids have stepped up with lawsuits like that
of Our Children’s Trust and the March 15 climate strike that
organizers say had 1 million students protesting climate change.
Perhaps this is yet another sign the measure to lower the voting
age in Oregon to 16 is worth talking about.
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