The campus-wide budget cut proposal that is pending approval and ready to be enacted come fall semester, is prominently affecting clubs and programs.
The athletic department is one of the most prominent programs at Cerritos College and is facing a 3.4 percent cut in funding, which amounts to $34,214 in cuts and a total of $184,321 of allocated funds for the fall semester.
Commissioner of Budget and Finance Dalia Jimenez stated in the senate meeting last Wednesday, that per the agreement made in the first allotted fund with the ASCC student body and athletic department that it is the responsibility of the department to pay for its expenses.
Specifically funding pertaining to the CerritosFalcons.com web page and athletic photographer.
Programs will be responsible for incorporatating fundraising as a major component in their income funds.
“Whenever an organization comes to senate, we ask (it)to show us proof that (it) fundraises 20 percent to whatever the petition is, it has been the precedence that we have taken the athletic department on (it) word. We don’t know how much (it) fundraise that is the issue,” said Jimenez.
“Historically, (the athletic department) been allocated between 18 to 19 percent of student body money. Unfortunately all the programs had to take a cut, this year we had to take that diversity a little further by actually funding programs that have never been funded before.”
Director of Athletics Dan Clauss explains that the department is currently exhausting all its manpower and resources to accumulate its current funding.
“The money that we get from the district and the money we get from ASCC isn’t enough to cover 19 programs, so we definitely have to fundraise,” Clauss said. “We (come) six, sometimes seven days a week and we only get paid for so much, so our student-athletes are working extra hours, staff is working extra hours.”
“There’s only so much you can do, we do actually a pretty good job of fundraising as it is. To say go fundraise more, we’re stretched to the max already with our man hours.”
The cuts will also be limiting who Cerritos College athletic teams face in their respective conference; it narrows travel, lodging and meals.
This results in teams not being able to face championship-caliber teams located outside of California, leaving them out of contention for a championship-run.
Each head coach implements (his) own approach toward fundraising for the respective teams; either it be through selling apparel, holding events on campus or by simply asking for donations from former athletes and alumni.
Dean of Athletics Dan Smith acknowledged that the ASCC student government does not have access to the fundraise numbers needed by the budget committee to properly gauge the athletic departments allocated funds.
“(ASCC doesn’t) have access to (our fundraise accounts), (Jimenez) didn’t have access to it, so I don’t blame her. As a general guideline she uses, she’d like to have us fundraise 20 percent of our budget, we fundraise 100 percent of our budget. We fundraise as much as our budget is.”
“There’s a reason why she doesn’t have access to this, some of these are donations, it has a person’s name on here and that’s private confidential information. Some people donate to a certain sport and they don’t want anyone to know, they have every right to be an anonymous donor.”
“It wasn’t that until last year the fundraise money (ASCC) also had to sign off on it but then (Dr. Contreras) and I realized, ‘why is that? This was never ASCC money, it was never student money.
This money comes from carwashes, donations or running big events.’ So (Dr. Contreras) said, ‘Why should I be signing fundraise money?’
“So now there’s no signing of fundraise money, I approve it as the dean here, but it doesn’t go to anybody from the student government anymore.”
