California’s community colleges are critical to our students’ and our communities’ recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, without immediate action from Sacramento, most of our colleges are facing dire fiscal crises, threatening jobs and undermining our ability to meet the needs of our students and our communities.

Here is what we need our elected leaders in Sacramento to do:

1. Extend the hold harmless provision in the funding formula. The impact of COVID on our colleges’ finances has been severe. Time to extend the hold harmless provision by at least one year to avert immediate fiscal crisis, and to pause all faculty layoffs during the hold harmless period. Lingering deferrals create unnecessary pressure on our already underfunded districts. With structural deficits looming, now is the time to eliminate all deferrals.

2. Expand the COLA and eliminate contingencies. Our community colleges should receive the same COLA as our K-12 schools, with no strings attached.

3. Eliminate all deferrals. Lingering deferrals create unnecessary pressure on our already underfunded districts. With structural deficits looming, now is the time to eliminate all deferrals..

4. End the wasteful expense of CalBright. We can no longer afford to waste any more of the state’s limited resources on this failed experiment. Time to shut CalBright down and invest these critical resources in our traditional community colleges.

Please take a moment to send a letter to our elected leaders in Sacramento, and urge them to fully invest in our community colleges.