At a meeting Monday, Cabrillo’s board of trustees voted to eliminate two vacant positions: an administrative assistant and a student support specialist. Other vacant positions may likewise remain unfilled, Cabrillo officials said. 

Some temporary faculty also are not expected to be re-employed, including a biology instructor, a dental hygiene program director, a nursing instructor, a communications studies instructor and a counselor.

After a mid-May revision of the California budget is released, trustees will vote on the preliminary Cabrillo budget in June and must adopt a final budget by Sept. 15. Money from state taxes were exceeding projections, leading to hopes that cuts to public higher education would be less severe, Cabrillo College President Matt Wetstein said at Monday’s meeting.

Cabrillo is in a “hiring frost,” rather than a “hiring freeze,” said Calvin Yu, Cabrillo College’s vice president of administrative services. “There are some critical positions we do need to backfill,” Yu said. “For example, the president [Matt Wetstein] is retiring. We will backfill this position.” Certain tenured faculty positions will be filled as well. 

“Even in great economic times, you’ll always have some staff come and go,” said Yu. “Especially with associate faculty, this is an opportunity for the college to account for different enrollment trends. There are some areas where we almost can’t recruit enough faculty,” Yu said, adding that “the flip side is also true. There are some programs where enrollment is declining.”

To prune the $93 million in expenditures that Cabrillo is slated to spend this upcoming year, the college is also planning to: 

• Reduce non-personnel-related operational expenditures by 5% to 10%, including advertising, software and supplies.  
• Reduce travel expenses. 
• Reduce credit card usage. Staff should instead go through the “standard purchase requisition and purchase order process,” Yu said.  
• Consider another early retirement incentive, similar to one initiated last year. 

Combined, these actions would move the college closer to making up the budget deficit and help the college maintain healthy reserves, Yu said. “But we would need to continue taking action,” he said. 

Budget cuts elsewhere

Due in large part to California’s sizable budget shortfall, Cabrillo College also made budget cuts last year. Cabrillo’s final budget for 2024-2025 was 4.2% less than the previous year.

Cabrillo is far from alone in facing financial difficulties. 

While Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 budget did not include cuts for community colleges, the University of California faces a $271 million funding reduction and the California State University faces a $375 million funding reduction. This amounts to a 5.6% and 8% decrease in state funding, respectively. 

But even though the budget for community colleges stayed steady, “it doesn’t keep pace with our increasing costs,” Yu said. 

He pointed out that utilities, Cabrillo’s third-largest expense after salaries and benefits, have “increased incredibly” in recent years. In addition, the state hasn’t funded building maintenance for many years, Yu said. There also have been pre-negotiated salary raises. 

Cabrillo College student housing

The budget has no bearing on a proposed 624-bed housing project that would be built on the college’s Aptos campus, said Cabrillo College spokesperson Kristin Fabos. Fabos said the current plan is to break ground in October and complete the project by fall 2027.

About 60% of the units would be rented to Cabrillo students and 40% would be for UC Santa Cruz students, including those who have transferred to UCSC from Cabrillo. This would be the first on-campus housing at Cabrillo since the college opened in 1959.

Cabrillo and UCSC leaders chose troubled multinational property manager Greystar to build and manage the housing. 

As of spring 2025, the college had roughly 10,000 students. In-state annual tuition and fees for full-time students are less than $1,500 per year. 

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