Resuming our advocacy to Save BMCC

Resuming our advocacy to Save BMCC

Today the faculty association is resuming its campaign of public advocacy after the failure of our efforts to reach an agreement with the college.

We met repeatedly with the college administration and made a proposal that would have preserved the college’s educational offerings while providing significant savings to the budget. Our proposal included:

*A faculty salary freeze for the coming year, despite inflation running over 8%.

*Giving up paid faculty professional development, a savings of about $250,000.

*Reducing faculty overload pay by $100,000 - $200,000.

*The early retirement of four full-time faculty members, plus the internal transfer of a fifth full-time faculty member, for a total of $450,000 in savings.

In return for these concessions, we asked one thing and one thing only: for the college to retract its plan to layoff faculty.

We came very close to reaching an agreement, but the college was unwilling to budge on a minimum of two layoffs. When we asked the college to consider giving up some of its budget increases to preserve educational offerings, they refused to consider or discuss the matter. These budget increases include:

A $100,000 increase in travel spending,
A $165,000 increase in the supply budget,
A $258,000 increase in the repair and maintenance budget,
A $116,000 increase in the budget for equipment and furniture,
A $100,000 increase in professional services, and
$265,000 to hire two new administrators.

Unfortunately, the college was unwilling to even discuss these unnecessary increases to the budget, nor could they explain why faculty must be laid off to make way for increased travel expenditures, consultants, and administrators. We could not accept arbitrary layoffs because we know BMCC’s mission is to educate its students. We know that students, parents, alumni, taxpayers, and community members rely on BMCC to provide an education that we can all be proud of.

We believe that we have made every possible effort to reach an agreement with the college administration, and we have no choice but to resume our campaign of public advocacy. Thank you for your support.

Please join us at the June 1st Board Meeting. We will be gathering at the BMCC Pendleton campus at 4:30pm on Wednesday June 1st.
For more information please contact:

Pete Hernberg
Blue Mountain Faculty Association
SaveBMCC.com
#savebmcc