SALEM — Blue Mountain Community College and several other community colleges seemingly saved their prison education programs from the chopping block, but it could come at a steep expense.

On Thursday, Nov. 12, the Oregon Department of Corrections sent out word to stakeholders that it was accepting an offer from the Oregon Community Colleges Association to retain contracted adult education services within the state prison system.

“The Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Oregon Community College Association (OCCA) worked diligently to create a plan that prioritizes learning for adults in custody and have come to an agreement regarding the path forward,” DOC communications manager Jennifer Black wrote in a Friday, Nov. 13, email. “DOC has accepted an option, put forward by the community colleges, that increases direct education services.”

But BMCC President Dennis Bailey-Fougnier said the deal would still result in substantial cuts at Blue Mountain’s Corrections Education program, which offers GED classes and other adult education courses at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, Two Rivers Correctional Institution and Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City.

Bailey-Fougnier said the association, negotiating on behalf of BMCC and five other community colleges across the state, presented the department with three options.

The state prison system chose Option 1, which would reduce BMCC’s allocation from $3 million per year to about $1.25 million annually. Bailey-Fougnier said the deal would result in cutting 8-9 positio ns from the 27 staff that work for the program, among other service reductions.

Bailey-Fougnier said Option 1 was meant more as an exercise in showing DOC what the program would look like if it used some of the budgetary constraints the department was asking for in negotiations. The other two options represented proposals with higher funding amounts and were considered more feasible by the community colleges.

“I wish we had never offered Option 1,” he said.

Bailey-Fougnier said both sides will meet again next week and his hope is that the colleges will be able to negotiate further and hammer out other details on working conditions, class sizes and how the new contract will be administered.

The Department of Corrections accepting an offer made by the state’s community colleges represents an abrupt change in tactics from the state’s prison system.

DOC told community colleges over the summer that it intended to end its contracts with them in favor of moving the majority of its educational programs in-house, a move representatives said would save the department money and offer more consistency to inmates across the system. Even as the colleges made some concessions, the department rejected an October offer and made plans to move ahead with transitioning education operations internally.

The conflict between DOC and the community colleges attracted the attention of state Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, who wrote a letter to Gov. Kate Brown imploring her to help save the relationship.

Hansell found a sympathetic ear across the aisle and on the other side of Oregon from state Sen. Michael Dembrow, a Portland Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Education.

In a Nov. 12 interview, Dembrow said the issue drew his attention as both a legislator who has worked on prison education issues in the past and as a former professor at Portland Community College, one of the schools with a DOC contract.

Dembrow convened a meeting with Hansell and representatives from both the corrections department and the community colleges.

Dembrow said the Oregon Legislature could pass a law in 2021 that would require DOC to contract with community colleges, but its potential for disruption made it less preferable to a deal made now.

“Nobody wants that to happen,” Dembrow said of legislative action on the community college contracts. “What would we be left with then? You’d be left with a situation where some people are let go, other people are hired, and what, in six months, those people are let go and the old people are rehired? That’s going to be hugely disruptive for the adults-in-custody as well as the employees.”

Both Dembrow and Bailey-Fougnier credited the meeting with breaking the ice, leading to DOC accepting the Nov. 6 offer.

But the ball is back in the colleges’ court as BMCC looks to avoid further cuts in a year where it’s already laid off several employees.