Sussex CC Board votes to cut 11 jobs
By Nathan Mayberg
NEWTON — There will be 11 layoffs at Sussex County Community College this summer — the fallout from five years of dropping enrollment along with more than $3 million in costs for a new student center renovation project.
The Board of Trustees approved the layoffs by an 8-2 vote on Tuesday.
College officials had announced the layoffs would occur in February, when the Board of Trustees approved a $20 million budget and voted to raise tuition at the school.
The decisions followed a report of an estimated loss of $1.2 million in revenue this year due to the decline in enrollment.
The cuts include two assistant professors, a dean and administrative positions.
"Frankly, we're heartbroken that we have to layoff these folks," Sussex County Community College Board of Trustees Chairwoman Lorraine Parker said on Thursday.
Parker said the college will lose experienced faculty but said the cuts were needed to fill an approximately $600,000 budget gap.
The tuition hike was passed to fill part of an even larger budget gap.
"All of the positions were crucial," Parker said.
In particular, she noted the loss of Vice President of Student Affairs Debbie McFadden, who has been with the college for 28 years.
That department is being reorganized.
Trustee Dan Perez, who voted against the layoffs, said the layoffs were the result of misplaced priorities.
The college's financial predicament is "largely self inflicted."
Perez cited hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to CP Engineers as well as more than $2 million being spent by the college to upgrade its information technology systems. Perez voted against the information technology spending.
Faculty members offered to take a cut in salary to stem the layoffs, which was not heeded by the board and administration, he said.
While Perez believes some layoffs were necessary, he said administrators had initially forecasted fewer cuts during a meeting months earlier.
Perez said he was prepared for five layoffs.
"Somehow five became 11," he said. Perez said he wasn't given an answer by the administration for the change.
In addition, Perez said one faculty member had been informed by the administration ahead of time of being terminated, before the board had voted.
The college's policy requires six months of notification for layoffs, which he said wasn't abided by.
Perez sees the board's oversight role over the administration at the college as a lingering problem.
College President Paul Mazur, who has announced he will retire June 30, wasn't available to be interviewed on Thursday.
In an emailed statement, Mazur blamed declining enrollment for the layoffs.
The college's decline in enrollment mirrors demographic changes going on in Sussex County, Parker said.
More people are leaving the county, particularly those in their 20s, as they choose to move closer to the cities.
Still, Parker said the college attracts about 22 percent of the county's high school graduates. That is one of the highest percentages in the state, she said.
Parker, who was among a group of people who pushed for the creation of the college, is still a firm believer in the institution.
She highlighted new agreements the college has made with four-year universities which will allow attendees of the community college to transfer their credits when they move beyond the two-year school.
A new agreement with Fairleigh Dickinson University will mean a 40 percent break in tuition to Sussex County Community College (SCCC) students if they attend there after they earn an associate's degree at SCCC.
Parker said the college saves families thousands of dollars in costs they would incur at four-year institutions.
The latest vote follows approval by the Sussex County Board of Freeholders earlier this month to issue $3.2 million in bonds for the college's renovation project.
The student center renovations are the latest in a series of multi-million dollar building projects at the college over the past dozen years. Part of those costs are paid for by the state.
Parker acknowledged the building projects have been expensive but believes that investing in the college's infrastructure is necessary to continuing to attract new students.
The college went through a tumultuous period last year when it was revealed that certain trustees had business relationships with or were being paid by an engineering firm which received more than $800,000 worth of contracts from the college. Two college trustees resigned as a result.
Last year, the college eliminated six positions while, at the same time, it awarded the lucrative contracts to CP Engineers.
The latest cuts bring the total number of layoffs to 39 over the past four years under Mazur.
In an emailed statement, Professor Jean LeBlanc, vice-president of the full-time Sussex County Community College Faculty Federation, wrote the faculty are "saddened by these lay-offs, as several of our members (as well as others from the SCCC family) expressed at the Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday evening. The SCCC Faculty is dedicated to creating a student-centered, academically excellent environment for our current and future students.
LeBlanc wrote that "the Full-Time Faculty Federation remains ready and willing to work with the college administration to find alternative solutions to be projected budget shortfall. The Federation believes that this situation can be resolved without the elimination of key personnel."