The College Planning Council made its first move to address the Supplemental Early Retirement Program vacancies and the reorganization of the Office of Educational Programs.
The Supplemental Early Retirement Program is designed to create incentives that increase and accelerate the retirement rate of City College staff in an effort to save the college money. Some positions will either be replaced, eliminated or turned into new positions. The college planning council is reorganizing these positions in a way that will meet the colleges needs while saving as much money as possible.
Among the people retiring and being replaced are Dean Ben Partee, Dean Marilynn Spaventa and Marsha Wright, director of Extended Opportunity Programs and Services.
Shelly Dixon, Director of the Professional Development Center, will not be replaced.
Faculty, management and support workers will face heavy losses.
Faculty vacated 24 positions and replaced 12. Management vacated six positions, three of which will be replaced, and gained two new positions. Support workers have vacated 20 positions, 13 of which will be replaced with one being eliminated.
Executive vice president Jack Friedlander and senior director Robert Else are retiring but will not be replaced. Research and assessment analyst Z Reisz will instead become Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Student Success and take on duties consistent with the job description.
The impact of reorganization projected for the next five years total $6,266,419 in savings for the Office of Educational Programs alone. This doesn’t include the reorganization of other departments such as fiscal services, human resources or information technology which will also bring in savings.
“These savings take into account the loss of salaries to positions, costs of replacement positions and any payouts,” said Dr. Paul Jarrell, executive vice president of educational programs at City College.
The City College projected in October that there would be a $9 million deficit in the 2017-2018 year. However, according to acting vice president of business services Lyndsay Maas, “we’re looking at about a $4.5 million deficit for next year at this point in time.”
This is because of measures such as the Supplemental Early Retirement Program and staff reorganization. The reorganization of the Office of Educational Programs alone has helped cut $991,104 from next year’s $9 million deficit.
“It is unprecedented for a college of this size to have a $9 million deficit in a year,” said superintendent Anthony Beebe. “It’s a mountain of a magnitude that is indescribable and we cut that in half.”
Maas plans on creating a subcommittee of the college planning council called the budget resource allocation committee (BRAC) that will help create a venue to work on addressing how the college will deal with the $4.5 million deficit the college is facing for the 2017-2018 school year.
Correction: Feb. 9, 2017
A previous version of this article mistakenly stated Lynsay Maas’s title. Maas is acting vice president of business services, not fiscal services controller.
Correction: Feb. 14, 2017
A previous version of this article mistakenly stated that research and assessment analyst Z Reisz would take on the roles of executive vice president and senior director.
