SANTA ANA : Trustees OK Budget Cuts of $2.1 Million

The Rancho Santiago College Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved $2.1 million in budget cuts that will not result in faculty layoffs or a major reduction in course offerings.

However, in a separate action, the board did approve the elimination of 23 part-time positions from its continuing education program at Centennial Education Center because of a projected loss of $3 million in state funding for amnesty classes to prepare immigrants for U.S. citizenship.

The budget cutbacks call for the elimination of a currently unfilled administrative position, the replacement of professors on sabbaticals with part-time instead of full-time employees, a reduction in the use of contract professors to teach classes such as court reporting and cuts in supplies and equipment.

Trustees postponed a decision on the proposed elimination of the college’s Professor Actor’s Conservatory, which would have saved $155,000. The two-year acting program has 37 students enrolled, 22 of whom would return for a second year next fall.

“It just kills me to see art be the first thing to be cut,” said Trustee Brian Conley, an art instructor at Golden West College. “I hold the opinion that the arts are essential to life. I think we owe it to the students in the program to have it at least another year.”

The board will reconsider eliminating the program next month, when trustees are presented with a tentative $67-million budget for fiscal 1991-92.

The college district, which enrolls more than 40,000 students in credit and non-credit programs, will lose more than $4 million in state funding if Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed budget for next year is approved in its entirety.