Amid budget crisis, S.F. City College lays off 38 full-time faculty members

San Francisco City College’s board of trustees voted Friday to lay off 38 faculty members in an effort to attain financial stability ahead of an accreditation review, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The 25,000-student community college is eliminating 50 faculty positions overall, but 12 are due to retirements. Dozens of part-time instructors will also be let go.

Like many community colleges, San Francisco City College has seen a steep drop in enrollment in the past few years, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The result is a deficit of $65 million since 2017-18, the Chronicle reported.

The trustees voted 4-1 in favor of the cuts. Trustee Alan Wong was the sole dissenter.

“At the end of the day I believe that layoffs should always be a last resort,” Wong said. “I felt that we should have explored other opportunities for mutual compromise first before we went to this measure.”