Budget for Mission College
* Your editorial of July 20, “A District Fails Its Mission,” was right on target. Mission College has indeed been a victim of its own success in a district that allocates budgets based on past needs. The district is backward, not forward, looking.
The answer to Trustee Gloria Romero’s question on which other campuses [to] take money [from] to fund Mission is that being underfunded means Mission is being sacrificed with 24% cuts to subsidize the others. The district has $8 million to $9 million in unallocated reserves. The purpose of reserves is to provide for an emergency. The collapse of a new, growing college is an emergency that meets the state chancellor’s criteria for use of the reserves--which the state criticized the district for failing to have in the past. The Los Angeles Community College District has a compelling case for asking the state to use these funds to rectify state criticism that the district underfunds Mission.
CHARLES E. DIRKS
Mission College
Founding Faculty President
Porter Ranch
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