The Cerritos College Budget and Planning Committee held a meeting on Feb. 3 to brainstorm ideas to cut expenditures and generate revenue in the next fiscal year as community colleges statewide face a $400 million budget cut.

According to David El Fattal, vice president of business services, Cerritos College stands to lose $4 million if Jerry Brown’s budget is enacted, but that number could grow to $11 million if legislation raising taxes does not pass.

“Of course, the difference between $4 million and $11 million is quite large, and will require some dramatic action on the reducing of expenditures,” El Fattal said.

During the course of the meeting, many suggestions, which were merely proposed as ideas to consider, were made by those on the committee as well as those who were representing different groups on campus on how to rebound financially from the decline in state funding.

Furlough days on Friday were put out as a possible remedy, until it was later addressed that Cerritos could not reduce the number of days of instruction any further or else it would lose its state funding altogether.

Among the suggestions for generating revenue was a proposal to increase parking cost by 50 percent.

Frank Montero, undecided major, said he thinks the idea is ridiculous.

“Students are having a hard time, as it is, making ends meet with paying their classes and buying their books.

“To raise it up is just ridiculous.  It just makes it that much harder for everyone,” Montero said.

Sonia Hernandez, a student in athletic training, said, “I think it’s wrong because [we], as students, struggle to pay our fees and for them to raise it, I just feel like it’s not fair.

“We can’t work full-time, because we’re full-time students and we just want to finish, and doing so, it’s just going to be difficult for us,” Hernandez said.

For Walter Fernandez, history professor, new staff and faculty have become a primary issue because Cerritos could be punished for not hiring enough.

“Of concern to me, as a department chairman, and having a department that’s possibly going to hire, is whether the cost of hiring 20-something people comes out to be less than the amount of money that the school would be fined if they don’t hire these people.

“And whether the Chancellor (of California Community Colleges) is willing to waive that fine, in order to give the college a break,” Fernandez said.

According to Fernandez, the majority of the suggestions made during the meeting have no definite dollar values attached to them.

“A dollar value has to be looked at for every one of these things that are being considered. Right now, it’s just some ideas being put up there,” Fernandez said.