Seven months after a $1.3 million budgeting error rocked North Seattle Community College, the school is still feeling the aftershocks, including criticism from the faculty union, the loss of more than 100 courses and the resignation of the former president.

An audit conducted by the union concluded that the Seattle Community College District spent too much on district headquarters and college administration, at the expense of faculty and program funding.

The audit of the district's three community campuses, which examined budget reductions that followed the accounting error, was conducted last fall by the Seattle Community Colleges Federation of Teachers, the union representing faculty members. The audit was publicly released this month. Union President Lynne Dodson said that teachers, financial aid advisers and janitors were targeted for cuts, including course-load reductions for part-time faculty members, but "that's not where the fat is."

District Chancellor Peter Ku adamantly disagreed with the union's contention that the administration is too big or overpaid, calling the charge "not fair." He noted that in recent years, he has cut administrative positions and boosted pay for part-time faculty members.

When the mistake was discovered in June, 90 classes were cut at North Seattle. Another 28 courses were eliminated in the fall because they were considered "under-enrolled," meaning they had 12 or fewer students. Altogether, more than 11 percent of courses were dropped. According to the audit, academic programs that took the brunt of the budget hit at North Seattle included humanities, cut 32.2 percent, and math/science, cut 28.4 percent. The budget for each program now is about $1.35 million. (Administration at the school was reduced 22.6 percent to $265,138.) While Ku said those numbers represent reductions in "dream budget" requests and not actual budget cuts, he did not have other figures to offer. He said courses were cut based on declining enrollment.

The most noticeable programs that missed the chopping block were popular high-tech vocational training programs, such as computer services, which increased its budget 23.7 percent to $739,403, and network technology, which grew 52.3 percent. to $363,553. Ku said there are waiting lists for courses in those areas.

Enrollment at North Seattle was not hurt by the cancellations; total enrollment was 6,122 in fall 1999 and 6,205 in 2000.

There are no plans to reinstate canceled classes. Ku and some faculty members agree that the schedules at North Seattle were bloated with too many underenrolled courses, which resulted from increasing course offerings at nights and on weekends. The accounting error that precipitated the cuts, announced publicly last spring, was discovered because the school was running out of money.

The manager of financial operations responsible for the mistake, which occurred when a revenue source was counted twice, resigned immediately.

The college's president, Kathleen Noble, was reassigned in July to head a new corporate training initiative for the Seattle Community College District. She continued to earn her president's salary of $128,000 annually, but resigned Dec. 31. Her settlement was half a year's salary.

The district has already lent North Seattle about $1.3 million to cover the mistake. The district's board of trustees is expected in February to approve a plan allowing the college to pay back the money, interest free, in $200,000 increments over six to seven years, beginning next year. The district is planning to pay 10 percent of the loan.

The loan comes from money made when the district privatized its bookstores and sold the inventory about five years ago. The money was held in reserve in case it was needed to support the bookstore in the future.

The loan will be repaid with continuing education and international student tuition, said Ku, who does not want to use revenue allocated by the state. Using only money the school earns "is a responsibility, I think, to the public," he said.

Earl Hamilton, a math and engineering instructor who has taught at North Seattle for 30 years, had one of his classes cut in the fall. He resents the growing emphasis on computer training, while academic courses that prepare students to transfer to four-year schools are whittled away.

"We have a bare-bones college," he said. By cutting his engineering classes -- the first in a yearlong series preparing students for university degrees in civil, mechanical and chemical engineering -- "they basically killed the (transfer engineering) program."

Ku acknowledged that academic programs in the Seattle district and around the state have faced reductions as resources shift to high tech and budgets grow tight.

He said there is pressure from politicians, businesses and the public to provide computer and network training.

At the same time, enrollment has dropped in some academic tracks; Hamilton's engineering course only had about a half-dozen students enrolled.

Seattle P-I

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001