Declining student numbers forces employee cutbacks

Scott Turner
In Motion Staff Writer

Daytona State has had a budget issue for several years and recently made the decision to not renew the contracts of 22 employees. Arrival at this decision was not done hastily and many choices made began at the heart of the issue —budgetary concerns.

On March 27 an open town hall meeting was hosted in Bergengren Hall specifically to address any questions employees might have about how these contract renewal denials came about.

“The problem is a structural issue with our budget,” said Carol Eaton, President of Daytona State College. “The dropping off of student enrollment is one of those factors. Enrollment helps drive our budget, providing additional dollars from both the students and the state since the state funding is based on a formula that is based on enrollment.

“With these budgetary concerns, we have had to dip into reserves and savings to help balance it for the past several years. It is not a sustainable business model,” Eaton continued.

Employee cuts are not the first step that has been taken to attempt to solve the financial troubles.

“We’ve taken several steps before this one to help lessen the drain on our finances,” Eaton said. “We’ve redone our policies on finance, massively reduced money spent on travel, professional development, non-recurring items such as water bottles and other incidentals. We’ve frozen several job positions as they became vacated in the past due to overlap those positions have had with other ones in their departments. Even with all this, the business model wasn’t sustainable.”

Of the employees cut, 18 were full time and four part time. Their positions included four administrators, six secretaries and office managers, eight advisers, and four part-time advisers.

The decision to make the cuts now was partially due to the fact that the budget year ends on June 30.

The question of the recent employee salary raise was brought up in the question and answer session at the conclusion of the meeting and whether or not, if it had not been passed, that the positions lost could have been saved.

“The recent raise would not have effected this decision. It addressed a separate issue of compression by raising the low side of the incomes here at Daytona State and gave a non-recurring payout. This payout came from funds that were non-recurring, and as such had no bearing on this decision,” Eaton said.

At the end of the meeting, Eaton made it clear that should anyone have questions about the decision, emails would be completely anonymous.

The budgetary concerns addressed lately are not Eaton’s fault, according to Laurie White, Marketing Director and Public Information Officer at Daytona State, “These problems have been around since before Dr. Eaton took the office, she’s just inherited them. Budget concerns have been a driving force behind a lot of the decisions regarding more efficient operating costs.”

Later that day, the issue regarding the cuts was brought up again at the Board of Trustees meeting.

Several of the trustees had concerns with some of the statements that had been made and thought they might be giving the wrong impression about what the state of the budget will be for the coming year.

“That’s the last thing we want,” Eaton said. “The budget will be balanced without going into reserves for the next fiscal year.”

Mary Ann Haas, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, expressed her feelings on the matter by saying, “There’s nothing more heartbreaking that having to be involved with reducing employee numbers.”