The board of trustees approved a tentative budget at their June 23 meeting by a vote of five to one.

Included in the tentative budget is a one percent salary increase for faculty which will come from the general fund.

College president Audre Levy said ,after the meeting, that the funding of various programs and items, including ASGCC, are facing proposed cuts as a result of needing to balance the budget, and because the state provided no money this year for the college.

Steve Ferguson, the newly-appointed student trustee, commented on the tentative budget, saying “The fact of the matter is that the ASGCC every year funds things like the graduation ceremonies, Baja maintenance, the cultural diversity program, the music department has some funds that come from us, (the volunteer office) and the speech and debate team.”

Ferguson was the lone dissenting vote against the budget.

“I just don’t think that, by giving those raises and making the cuts we’ll have to make as a result of those raises, that it reflects the true priorities of this college, which should be our students,” said Ferguson.

Not adopted was a guild resolution on salaries, fiscal responsibility and collective bargaining that stated, among other things, that the faculty is sacrificing a great deal by accepting a one percent raise.

Later ,after the guild resolution died, Gordon Alexandre, faculty guild president, in reply to Ferguson’s statement, said “for a student to say that a measly one percent .when inflation is over five percent and the average (raise) in the county is 4.63 percent, to say this is anti-student, I resent it.”

Victor King, board president, responded, “you don’t say things after negotiations are over.”

Other items on the agenda included a five-year construction plan, to renovate both the Sierra Nevada building and the auditorium, then seismically renovate the Verdugo gym building, which was approved across the board.

Also approved was a human resources plan and a facilities plan.

The board adopted a resolution to show the importance of the college to the Legislative Conference Committee, which has begun deliberations on the state budget.

The board also chose two of the options from a list of ways to show the meetings on the Internet. They have chosen a camera that will have one operator and a separate microphone option. The microphone will be built into the table for each trustee
Future board meeting topics will include the expansion of the Garfield campus, traffic and community safety and accreditation.

The next Board of Trustees meeting is July 21 at 5 p.m. in Kreider Hall.