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Frederick Community College employees are not thrilled that their first work day in January will be furloughed and their paychecks will be thinner for the first few weeks of the year.

But by not paying employees to work on Jan. 2 the community college may be able to avoid more drastic changes as it struggles to meet anticipated budget deficits, college president Carol Eaton said this week.

The college expects a $400,000 shortfall in state funding in fiscal 2009.

To balance that, college officials have asked employees to give up one day's pay to help the college save up to $85,000 in its budget.

Officials will use the furlough to trim spending this year while preparing for greater deficits next year.

"We understand the necessity for this," said Ken Kerr, who chairs the Faculty Association at Frederick Community College.

"We hope that if we do this now, these benefits will be restored as soon as possible."

Because of the furlough, the college will start the spring semester later than usual. Instead of starting the new term on Jan. 2, a Friday, college staff will begin Jan. 5, a Monday.

The measure will affect few classes, because most faculty don't have classes that early in the semester, Kerr said.

Frederick Community College officials held an open forum for more than 200 staff members on Nov. 11, and used it as an opportunity to inform employees about the furlough and other upcoming cuts.

Most staff said they'd rather see the college go through furloughs now, than layoffs later, Kerr said.

According to Kerr, the general feeling among faculty was that the college could have been in a much worse situation if officials hadn't started preparing ahead of time.

"This didn't catch us by surprise," he said.

Eaton said officials started looking at budget deficit solutions in April. College officials approved a final plan in October, after they found out the state will cut $400,000 of funding for fiscal 2009.

Fearing that the state could announce further cuts later in the year, college officials decided to delay all staff hiring by 60 days, limit out-of-state travel and freeze purchasing of new furniture and equipment.

Along with the one-day furlough, these cuts were chosen because they had the least impact on class instruction, Eaton said.

That was the also the main reason why the college officials did not decided to completely freeze the hiring of new faculty, Eaton said this week when she met with Frederick County commissioners and public school officials to discuss upcoming budget issues.

With a 12 percent increase in enrollment this year, Frederick Community College knows students rely on its affordable and high-quality services, she said.

"We were the fastest growing community college in the state (this year)," she said.

"We are looking at another double-digit increase in students next year. … We try to minimize the impact and still maintain the quality."

Tuition typically goes up by 2 percent every year.

In September 2009 that increase may grow to about 4 percent, Eaton said.