Dive Brief:

• Santa Monica College is set to lay off some 60 staff members as well as eliminate the equivalent of about 10 vacant positions after a vote by its board of trustees on Tuesday. 
• Additionally, the California community college’s board approved measures that would also open any of the college’s classified management and academic administrator roles to potential elimination as it restructures. 
• The cuts come as Santa Monica College tackles a growing structural deficit that could balloon to nearly $17.5 million next fiscal year and nearly wipe out its financial reserves.

Dive Insight:

Trustees faced blowback over the layoffs during the Feb. 3 meeting. One staffer, who also belongs to a campus employee union, took aim at how the layoff process has played out, contending it left no time for staff input into the decision. 

Multiple speakers at the meeting said employees would have been willing to take other measures, such as unpaid furloughs, to avoid layoffs.

Nonetheless, trustees narrowly approved the layoffs.

“Like other higher education institutions facing similar budgetary pressures, SMC has to take the necessary steps to safeguard our fiscal viability and ensure that the College’s life-changing mission can continue to be made real, for years to come,” Superintendent and President Kathryn Jeffery said in an internal message following the vote.

Along with the approved layoffs, the board adopted amendments that open up all classified management and academic administrator positions — which number 49 and 46, respectively, according to a spokesperson — for potential elimination. 

“The intention of the Board adding these positions is not to eliminate all of them, but to allow consideration of all of these positions in the restructuring of the College in the coming weeks,” Jeffery said in her message.

The cuts come as Santa Monica College tries to chip away at its structural deficit. The college was able to scrape together $6.3 million in one-off funds, according to a presentation by Chris Bonvenuto, the college’s vice president of business and administration. 

That reduced the budget deficit to $5.8 million for the year so far. But without the millions in nonrecurring funds, the structural deficit for the next fiscal year was projected to rise to about $17.5 million. And in turn, the college’s reserves would fall from $17.8 million to less than $300,000 by June 2027.

“You’re going to have to cut that deficit — that structural deficit — if you want to be even,” Bonvenuto said. 

Santa Monica College has already cut some $8.6 million from its budget for the current fiscal year, including through reducing class and counseling schedules by 5%. 

Enrollment, meanwhile, has slumped. Total winter term headcount is down over 5% from last year while nonresident enrollment has dropped nearly 15%, according to a presentation Tuesday from Tania Acosta, Santa Monica College’s vice president of student success. 

Spring enrollment also declined year over year, but not as steeply, with total headcount down a little over 1% and nonresident enrollment nearly 9% lower. 

The nonresident category "is still very difficult and very troubling for the institution,” Acosta said, pointing to declines in international student enrollment. 

The college’s student body has shrunk over the long term as well. Between 2019 and 2024, fall headcounts dropped by 14.7% to 23,453 students.