St. Louis Community College Board To Vote On Faculty Layoffs

ST. LOUIS, MO — St. Louis Community College's Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote Thursday on budget cuts that would mean layoffs for almost a hundred full-time faculty and staff. The school has already reduced its number of administrators and plans to sell a downtown administrative building. The board says the cuts are necessary to prevent a multi-million dollar deficit resulting from a drop in enrollment and cuts to state funding, but critics point to the Chancellor's salary and irresponsible building projects as better candidates for belt-tightening.

Adjunct Instructor Steve Taylor, who was tackled by police at a board meeting in October, released a statement saying the staff cuts were not in the best interest of students. "The replacement of full-time faculty with adjuncts, who do not have the professional support such as offices, job security, and are often overworked with long commutes to various colleges during the workday is not good for students and will harm the quality of education," he said.

Taylor called the college's financial problems self-inflicted and provided documents that indicate the college's chancellor, Jeff Pittman, received a $40,000 stipend for housing and transportation for 2016 and a $35,000 stipend for 2017, in addition to his base salary of $260,000 annually plus health and retirement benefits. A new $32 million allied health programs building has also added to the financial crunch. Taylor called the building project troubling.

"As a college we need to focus on student success, which is more closely aligned to proper full-time instructional staff rather than legacy building projects and extravagant housing and car expenses," Taylor said. "Most people, and all instructors use salary for housing and cars, why does Chancellor Pittman need extra funds to pay for necessities, especially when he is suggesting the layoff of nearly 18 percent of full-time faculty?"

Patch has reached out to Chancellor Pittman and will update this story when we hear back. The board meeting is set to begin in downtown St. Louis at 7 p.m. at the Cosand Center on South Broadway.

Watch the October board meeting where Taylor was tackled below:

Image via YouTube