It’s another sign of Washington state’s fiscal crisis. The community and technical college system may declare a “financial emergency.” A decision is expected this Thursday. It would allow the college presidents to fast-track lay-offs of full-time and even tenured faculty. Olympia Correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

Washington’s two-year colleges were spared the worst of the higher ed cuts this year. Even so, when you factor in inflation, the 34 college system is facing a nearly 4-percent reduction over the next two years. Because faculty salaries account more than 80-percent of costs, Washington’s Community and Technical College Board is considering something that hasn’t been done since the early 1980s: declaring a state of emergency. The Board’s John Boesenberg says an emergency declaration would allow college presidents to expedite lay-offs.

Boesenberg: “It’s not a tool anyone likes to use or wants to use, we don’t want to lay-off full-time faculty, we don’t want to lay-off part-time faculty. ”

Not surprisingly the unions representing community and technical college faculty are howling. The Washington chapter of the American Federation of Teachers calls the emergency declaration a – quote - “blunt object.”

Copyright 2009 KUOW

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