Abigail Bornstein sent this to our EFF, Electronic Faculty Forum:
There's lots of discussion happening right now about Free City funds because the city is looking to lower the amount given to CCSF each year.
This was discussed at the last BoT Student Success Committee meeting (video starting at 18:20).
Part of the issue is that we have not been using all the funds (see attached spreadsheet). We roughly have unused Free City money each year between $8 - $9 million.
2022 - didn't use $7.6 million
2023 - didn't use $9.3 million
2024 - didn't use $8.7 million even after paying off student debt of $1.6 million
When we don't use the money, it sits in an account that no one can touch. No one is using it, but it just sits unused while the city is struggling to balance its own budget.
The city is now looking to take away funds that we aren't using. It's a shame that we haven't been using them. We also haven't come up with other options besides clearing outstanding student debt to take advantage of the unused funds.
If we present something to the city with likely dollars needed, we may be able to redirect the unused money towards something beneficial. We haven't done that yet. Time is running out.
Ultimately, we want to keep as much Free City funding as possible, but we have to actually use the money in an acceptable way and not just have it sit in an account with unused funds.
The above is a fuller view of what is happening with Free City and the possible partial removal of CCSF funds.
Abigail
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