PENDLETON — Blue Mountain Community College sits on a hill overlooking Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, and for decades, the college has sent educators down the hill to teach adult education classes to inmates behind prison walls.

As the program draws to a close, that relationship is now in jeopardy.

In late August, the Oregon Department of Corrections told BMCC and other community colleges across the state that it intended to end its educational contracts in 2021. For BMCC, that means losing out on a $3 million annual contract that encompasses 27 jobs across three state prisons: EOCI, Two Rivers Correctional Institution, and Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City.

BMCC President Dennis Bailey-Fougnier said the college wasn’t consulted ahead of the department’s decision.

“That was news to us, to be honest with you,” he said.

With dozens of jobs at stake, Bailey-Fougnier said the state’s prisons benefit from having experienced educators lead the program.

BMCC is now working with a coalition of college administrations and unions to try to get the state to reverse its decision.

But the department of corrections remains firm that significant changes need to be made to the prison’s adult education programs, which include GED courses and English as as second language classes.

“DOC has an unprecedented budget shortfall and this change allows for significant savings,” department communications manager Jennifer Black wrote in a statement. “Repurposing contract dollars for DOC staff positions will give the department greater flexibility in the delivery of adult basic education programming, will increase weekly classroom hours, allow for consistency between institutions as (adults in custody) transfer from one institution to the next, and enhance case management information-sharing both during the AIC’s incarceration phase and as AICs transition to the community.”

In a Sept. 30 letter to the Oregon Community Colleges Association, department Director Collette Peters wrote that the state prison system started the year with a $110 million projected shortfall and has spent the ensuing months making cuts, slashing $25 million from its budget before the Oregon Legislature lopped off another $2.4 million in August.

Canceling its contracts and creating 70 positions internally would save the department $1 million, or about 6% of the $16.4 million DOC spends over its two-year budget cycle on outsourcing its adult education programs.

But the department thinks it could cushion the blow of future budget cuts in a different way, by offsetting some of its staff reductions.

“(The) conversion allows for the creation of a substantial number of (department) staff positions, establishing positions for qualified staff to go into in the event their positions are impacted by future layoffs,” correctional division staff wrote in a policy memo.

In an Oct. 6 email, department communications coordinator Vanessa Vanderzee wrote that instructors would be expected to have a bachelor’s or master’s degree depending on the position, but existing prison staff could also fill positions for coordinators, lab supervisors and administrators.

Pete Hernberg, the president of BMCC’s faculty union, said prisons could actually see a dip in quality from running its own education program, citing a press release from the Oregon Education Association announcing the union’s support for the community colleges.

In the press release, the educators’ union states that successful program completion dropped by 50% and costs rose when the Oregon State Penitentiary moved its education program in-house from 2003-06.

“We really think it’s a disaster for the state and its AICs,” Hernberg said.

Vanderzee couldn’t verify the statistic, but added that it only applied to one institution from 15 years ago.

Much has changed since then, Vanderzee wrote, including the use of inmates as tutors and educational software that can adapt to the inmates’ needs.

As the year winds down, the department isn’t backing down from its proposed reforms to its adult education program.

If community colleges wanted to keep their contracts, Peters wrote in her Sept. 30 letter, they would need to agree to a list of requirements determined by the DOC. The colleges could take it or leave it, but the requirement list wasn’t meant to act as an opening offer for negotiations.

Instead of each college negotiating its own contract, each school would need to agree to a standardized contract that would pay out based on each prison’s capacity. Additionally, each school would also need to offer flexible class schedules and year-round education, disregarding school or term breaks.

Regardless of who leads the adult education programs, the DOC wants to continue contracting out vocational training.

Cam Preus, the executive director of the Oregon Community College Association and a former BMCC president, said her organization is acting as a “convener” for the community colleges that are affected by the state’s decision, which also includes the community colleges in Portland, Salem, Bend, Ontario and Coos Bay.

Preus said the college presidents and their staff are currently formulating a response to Peters’ letter, but have indicated that they need more time to study the proposed funding formula and look at how the new requirements would affect their institutions.

“We are committed to the success of adults in custody,” she said.

In the meantime, the colleges and their labor unions are trying to rally support for their cause.

Hernberg said BMCC’s faculty union has already put in calls into the governor’s office and is organizing an effort to call legislators.

The college is trying to stave off another round of cuts after encountering a $2.8 million shortfall earlier this year. BMCC closed the gap by eliminating two dozen positions, cutting half of them through layoffs.