City College of San Francisco - California Competes

STANDARD III.D
All of California’s community colleges have
weathered a recent series of difficult financial
years. The economic downturn that accompanied
the burst of the “dot com bubble” had
a major impact on state revenue that in turn
affected funding for community colleges. This
situation was even more challenging for CCSF
due to the historically inadequate level of
financial support the state provides for noncredit
education.
As noted in the response to III.D.1.c., in anticipation
of the fiscal downturn that began in
2002, the College intentionally built its Board
Designated Reserve up to a level of $5.5 million
by the end of 2001-02. During the two succeeding
fiscal years (2002-03 and 2003-04), the
College, in a planned manner, used a portion
of its Board Designated Reserve to fill the gap
between resources and expenditures. As a result,
the Board Designated Reserve was lowered from
$5.5 million at June 30, 2002 to $3.775 million
as of June 30, 2004. [Ref. 11] The College’s budget
for fiscal year 2005-06 included the transfer
of an additional $800,000 from the Board
Designated Reserve, lowering the expected
amount that would remain in the reserve as
of June 30, 2006 to $2.975 million.
The College’s objective is and has been to try
to maintain a 5 percent available unrestricted
general fund balance as recommended by the
State Chancellor’s Office. During fiscal year
2002-03 the unrestricted general fund balance
was slightly below the 5 percent level for a short
period of time. This situation was remedied by
shifting $2.4 million in rents collected from
district owned properties into the unrestricted
general fund. The College has requested and
received a legal opinion indicating these funds
may be treated as unrestricted and are therefore
available for any legal purpose. However, the
combined total in the reserve of $5.4 million
would need to be supplemented by an additional
$3.1 million to meet the state’s recommended
minimum fund balance of $8.5 million or 5 percent
of unrestricted general fund expenditures.
It is not likely that the College’s “unrestricted
unreserved ending balance” would provide much
of that difference. Instead, the difference would
be made up by the remaining value on a longterm
prepaid lease.
The College has generally been able to maintain
an ending balance of at least 5 percent in the
unrestricted general fund as recommended by
the State Chancellor’s Office. The chart below
shows the actual unrestricted general fund
ending balance as a percentage of relevant
expenditures for each of the past five fiscal years:
Ending Unrestricted % of Unrestr'd General
Fiscal Year General Fund Balance Fund Expenditures
2000–01 $7,968,671 5.4%
2001–02 $8,772,000 5.7%
2002–03 $7,248,109 4.6%
2003–04 $10,580,146* 6.9%
2004–05 est $11,900,000* 7.4%
* includes long-term prepaid ground lease for the site of the new Mission Campus
214 CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO