Western Front - 1973 November 9

              the # western front western Washington state college
Vol. 66
No. 12
November 9, 1973
FRIDAY
Ten Cents
Recycle all paper
Bonnie Raitt
in concert
tomorrow
Olympia eyes Western's plight
by DUFF WILSON
Because of drastic errors in
enrollment prediction, legislators and
staff members in Olympia are probing
higher education experts for ideas and
solutions.
The problem they are studying,
fluctuating enrollments, hit hardest this
year at the state colleges, especially
Western.
Western's actual enrollment is about
1,000 students below predictions this
fall. Facultv cuts of about 100 positions
might thus have to be made to comply
with legislative staffing limits.
Some legislators seem to feel this
overappropriation—about $1.6 million
- can and should all be returned by
next year. Others, including Bellingham
Rep. Barney Goltz, argue that the
college needs more turnabout time to
prevent permanent disfiguration.
The problem is immediate and will
be "solved" either by the college itself
in the next two months or by the
legislature when it convenes in January.
The dilemma boils down to quality
education versus staffing requirements.
Western's main internal thrust is seen
by Ways and Means staff members in
Olympia as an attempt to save program
integrity by reducing only where there
is a reduction in demand.
It is their hope that the college's
plight will be solved at the college level,
rather than having the legislature impose
a solution.
"If they decide this (100 faculty) is
an unrealistic figure, that Western can't
get down that far by the end of the
biennium, then legislation is a
possibility to phase them in,"
commented Lyle Jacobsen, staff, Senate
Ways and Means committee.
Western President Jerry Flora,
Academic Vice-President Jerry
Anderson and the All-College Senate
have all expressed a desire for a gradual
readjustment, possibly over three years
rather than one.
Western is now at 87 per cent of the
faculty staffing formula, Jacobsen said.
To be at the required 73 per cent by
next year, the number of faculty
positions must be cut from 498 to 399.
"The state is not hostile. We're trying
to find facts and workable solutions,"
Jacobsen, who visited Western three
w e e k s a g o , c o n t e n d e d.
"Communications between Western and
Olympia are getting better and more
clear."
He said legislation is not really taking
money away from the colleges; rather, it
Surplus won't
help Western
A state budgetary surplus of $35
to $50 million will be shown this
biennium, but it is unlikely higher
education-or Western - will see any
of it.
State Rep. H.A. "Barney" Goltz
predicted the surplus recently but
said "tax reduction will probably
have a little more force behind it
than increased services."
Goltz, wearing two hats as campus
planner and elected official, said the
surplus would be "based upon the
rising revenues which are coming in
to the state, as a result primarily of
inflation."
"I believe we are going to show a
$50 million surplus for this
biennium," he forecast. "But there is
no ' assurance at all that higher
education could claim even a portion
of that money for solving our
problems.
"There are lots of demands for
that money, including a reduction in
taxes, in sales taxes, or even a
rebate."
is mandating the established staffing
level, determined by enrollment.
John Walker, higher education's chief
demographer (enrollment forecaster),
conceded his errors with a promise to
work toward improvement.
"It's very difficult to project new
social values," he said.
Speaking last Friday before Goltz's
subcommittee on higher education
appropriations, Walker said the time for
budget prediction review has been very
short.
He outlined steps to finalize
enrollment forecasts by Nov. 15 each
biennium, to present to the legislature
by Dec. 20 before the regular January
session.
"For the first time," he said,
"forecasts will be reviewed in detail
with the schools."
Jacobsen said that, given the
quandary, "Western has worked harder
than any of the other schools in trying
to work up a policy for retrenchment or
reduction-in-force."
He said the main reason a budget cut
was passed during the September
mini-session was "to shake up the
institutions, get them thinking about a
policy." Gov. Evans vetoed the bill, but
"the institutions became aware that the
legislature looked at them closely, and
would do so again in January,"
Jacobsen said.
Discrepancies in higher education
budgets was one of the problems that
stood out and was studied between
legislative sessions in Olympia. The
House found they could save money
due to lower enrollments and possibly
reduce taxes or use it elsewhere.
Information on capital budget funds
— separate from operational — was also
studied recently. The need for
continued justification for new facilities
and buildings was stressed.
"It's a question of proper utilization
of existing facilities, and whether there
is a need to build new ones," remarked
Goltz seeks to ease faculty layoffs
by DUFF WILSON
State Rep. H.A. "Barney" Goltz,
D-Bellingham said, "Olympia is saying
(to Western) if you- don't have that
many students you don't need that
many professors and you don't need
that many dollars."
Barney Goltz, director of campus
planning said, "The way it works out is
that you do not have that many
students but you've already hired that
many professors, so you do need that
many dollars to keep those professors
from suing you to death in the layoff
procedures."
The Goltzes are the same-man; he is
caught in the middle of the worst
budget crisis in Western's history.
State enrollment predictions were
overestimated at Western this year by
about 1,000 students. Budgets were
made before the discrepancy was
apparent.
Contracts were signed with 498
faculty members. The legislative
formula, based on actual enrollment,
now mandates a reduction to 399
faculty positions.
This loss of 100 faculty will be
tempered by the Summer Plan and
other actions to redistribute the
workload, but an impact is unavoidable.
Western may be called upon to
return $1.6 million in appropriated
dollars to the state next year. Local
revenue losses from fewer students are
an additional $ 1.4 million.
"There is going to be an impact. I
don't think there's any way to avoid
that," Goltz said in an interview last
week. "And I think the faculty
recognizes that too."
"The state is not going to retain
employes who have no students to
teach. It's a hard thing to say, because
it's people we're talking about, but
that's the case," he added.
He's far from giving up the fight in
Olympia, though. He concedes Western
should be staffed at the same level other
L
Inside...
Food stamp interviewees wait
Applicants without appointments spend a day of waiting, only to find
they must wait more. See pg. 4.
Counseling center cads students
The center performs an educational service, according to staff members.
But cuts will reduce it to a referral center. See pg. 2.
state colleges are but argues this is
asking too much in one year.
"If we are going to cut this faculty
by 20 per cent," he said, "I feel we can
demonstrate that great harm will be
done. It might, in fact, be legally
impossible, given contractual obligations
to faculty and students.
"The college was not responsible for
predicting our own enrollment. We were
not responsible for the instruction as to
how many faculty we should hire in the
fall of '73.
"Because those facts came from
outside the institution, I feel that the
other agencies of government, including
the legislature, have an obligation to
share in the managerial problems that
such errors of projection make."
He added that if the college has to
cut tenured faculty, it will have the cost
of lawsuits, and legal expenses; and if it
cuts faculty will it give them
unemployment compensation?
However he looks at it, Goltz sees
the proposed one-year slash as
untenable. Not hostile, he's quick to
add, just practically unworkable.
"The college was told how many
people to hire and then when the
students didn't materialize the college is
told to solve the problem all by itself,"
he asserted.
"So what we're trying to do is to say,
'O.K., we're all in this together.' We're
trying to work on a proposal that would
limit the faculty or dollar reductions of
a certain year (if enrollment goes down)
to a certain amount. . . The following
year we would have to make up the
difference."
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Gene Schlatter, House Ways and Means
staff. "We don't have a solution yet.
We're going out and getting input."
Schlatter recently visited Western
which impressed him with its internal
concern and work on the problem. He
said his job is information-gathering and
"communicating to colleges that effort
is going on in the legislature."
"Legislators must answer to their
own constituents," he said. "When you
have declining enrollments that have
been very much publicized, there's
concern that there's too much money
being appropriated, and they've got to
give justification for i t . . ."
Many long-range solutions have been
suggested including changing the role of
four-year colleges in general, or basing
budgets on a lag enrollment figure —
financing based on the previous year's
enrollment — which would eliminate the
guesswork.
Another possibility is re-establishing
a contingency fund for higher
education, discontinued recently
because the forecasts were so accurate.
Jacobsen is also studying reducing
Western's fee, or raising that of other
colleges, to attract more students.
(Cont. on pg. 8)
H.A. 'BARNEY' GOLTZ
This is similar to a three-vear
formula-reduction plan a committee of
the All-College Senate is presently
working on.
The. proposal for gradual
readjustment, Goltz said, "would
probably be part of a supplemental
budget this January in which we
recognize that Western has no way of
meeting legislative intent . . ."
Next year's faculty formula level has
been set at 73 per cent, or 20.5 students
per teacher. Under law, all state colleges
must comply with this.
The sole purpose of the formula,
Goltz said, is to provide equity in
funding between colleges. One hundred
per cent is not a goal.
"The level of formula is an
(Cont. on pg. 8)