Ken Serrano

@KenSerranoAPP

To plug a multi-million dollar budget hole, a plan to cut more than 200 positions at Brookdale Community College was approved Thursday night by the Board of Trustees.

The plan will be aired before the public through November. A final vote is expected in December.

LIVE 12:30 P.M. TODAY: Brookdale student who claims police brutality talks to APP

Under the proposal, with union bumping rights coming into play for some staff, the exact number of possible layoffs still is unclear, a college spokeswoman said Friday. Although 210 jobs will be eliminated under the proposal - 33 of those positions are vacant - the plan also calls for adding 126 new positions. The net loss of jobs amounts to 51, under the plan.

It is unclear how many of the 177 staff currently holding the jobs that could be cut out of the 210 will actually be laid off. Some staff will shift into the 126 new positions because of the union bumping rights. Those without those rights may fill the remainder of those new positions also - or be laid off.

Brookdale currently has 646 staff.

The staffing changes would take place in July if the plan gets approved.

LETTER: Brookdale board must commit to fighting layoffs

The plan also includes changes such as a new "one-stop" center for student support services, an "innovation center" to bring new technologies in classroom, more technology training for staff and improvements to the college's Freehold campus.

About 250 students, staff and alumni turned out for the boisterous meeting on the campus in the Lincroft section of Middletown.

The business portion of the meeting was brief. But dozens of people appealed to the board to vote down the plan.

"In the last two years, I feel like I've been devalued, like I have a target on my back that's a dollar sign," said Art Marshall, a professor of education and sociology who has worked at Brookdale for 46 years. "I have a feeling that the college is being dismantled."

Read additional stories about Brookdale

Brookdale President Maureen Murphy said the plan is needed to fill a drop in operating revenue. Since 2011, that revenue has fallen by of some $14.7 million, including a $5.7-million decline in tuition.

"We are in a situation that no one could envision," she said.

County funding has decreased by $9.4 million and state funding by $393,000 in that three-year period, she said.

Brookdale has suffered from a decline in enrollment in the last few years, as have other community colleges around New Jersey. The student body stood at 14,144 this fall, down from 15,783 four years ago.

Brookdale meets fiscal challenge

Murphy said the operating budget deficit over the last three years has been filled with the college's reserves. With the new budget, reserves won't be used, under the plan.

The plan for layoffs was made public about two weeks after Murphy was given an annual pay raise in a three-year contract, rising from $194,000 this year to $200,000 next July, $204,000 in 2016 and $208,000 in 2017.

Since 2011, the college has eliminated or deferred more than 50 full-time positions, Murphy said. It has also reduced or frozen all operating budgets, delayed capital expenditures, and enacted a hiring freeze for all noncritical positions. They amounted to $2.4 million in operating expense savings this year, she said.

Ken Serrano: 732-643-4029; kserrano@njpressmedia.com