By Emily Schopfer
MIDDLETOWN – The Brookdale Community College Board of Trustees last month unanimously approved a plan to reduce its workforce, an action driven by the rising cost of healthcare benefits, it said. The board first proposed the reduction in force in August and approved it at the Sept. 22 meeting.
“This isn’t something we ever imagined we’d have to go through again,” trustee Paul Crupi, a former board chairman, said at the meeting. “Frankly though, this isn’t about us, this is about you all in the audience,” he said to the large crowd gathered at the meeting.
“Although our job to approve this is unenviable, it’s fairly easy. We just vote, yes or no,” he said. “The hard part is going to be on your backs and on Dr. Stout and his team,” Crupi said, referring to Brookdale Community College President David M. Stout. Crupi said he appreciated Stout’s “clear-headed leadership and decision-making” during this “extremely difficult time.”
“I want everyone in the audience to know that this is not something we don’t take very seriously,” board member Tracey Abby-White said.
“We have looked at everything we could do, but our job is to make sure that we have a college,” she said. Abby-White assured those in the audience that they “didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve given everything to this college, and we wish we were not sitting here.”
She said the board was trying to initiate the layoffs “with as much compassion and care as possible.”
The “Reduction in Force Plan (RIF) and Strategic Reorganization Plan” presented Sept. 22 outlines a projected $8 million deficit in the college’s fiscal year 2028 budget. Brookdale’s 2028 fiscal year covers the 2027-28 academic year, running from July 2027 through August 2028. This deficit, the brief notes, is driven by an “anticipated $6.6 million increase in health benefit costs and $1.4 million in employee wages.”
The proposed plan aims to reduce projected Fiscal Year 2028 salary and benefit costs by $7.36 million by removing 61 positions. Nineteen staff positions will be eliminated and 10 existing vacancies will remain unfilled; 11 administrator positions will be eliminated and seven will remain vacant; eight faculty positions will be eliminated and three will remain vacant; and three executive positions will be eliminated.
The reductions in force will be conducted in two rounds. The board created notification letters showing the first round of layoffs effective Dec. 31, 2026, and the second round effective June 30, 2027.
“Affected employees have been given the option to separate in January or July 2027,” said Laura Oncea, director of Communications and College Relations.
Even with the loss of 61 positions, the brief says a $637,809 gap remains to close the deficit. Brookdale will address this gap through expense-control measures such as reducing discretionary spending, improving operational efficiency, additional layoffs, and increasing alternative revenues.
“Reducing our workforce is an extraordinarily difficult decision because every position represents a valued colleague and an important member of the Brookdale community,” Stout said in a Sept. 22 statement. “We recognize the personal and professional impact of this decision, and we do not take it lightly. Every person affected has contributed to Brookdale’s mission and to the success of our students, and we are deeply grateful for that service.”
According to Stout, the college has experienced significant shifts in both enrollment and operating costs since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Even six years later, Stout said enrollment remains 6% below its pre-pandemic levels.
“Health benefit premiums under the New Jersey School Employee Health Benefits Program (SEBHP)… increased 33.2% in January 2026 and (are) anticipated to increase an additional 30% or more in January 2027,” the board’s resolution noted.
Although Brookdale is the county college of Monmouth County, eligible faculty receive health insurance through the New Jersey School Employees’ Health Benefits Program rather than a county-administered plan.
Nearly 60% of Brookdale’s operating revenue comes from tuition, Stout said, but increasing tuition is not a “sustainable solution” to the rising cost problem.
News of the layoffs comes as Brookdale Community College negotiates its contract with the Brookdale Adjunct Faculty Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey. The contract negotiations have been ongoing since April 2025 but are currently at a stalemate because the union is calling for seniority and priority for longtime adjuncts.
“Brookdale Community College values the important contributions of our adjunct faculty and made a comprehensive negotiations proposal in the Spring of 2026, which the adjunct faculty union rejected,” a representative from the college said Sept. 22. The representative said the adjunct faculty union filed for impasse and rejected the state-appointed mediator’s recommendations for a settlement. “The college remains willing and open to the adjunct faculty union accepting the college’s last best offer,” the representative said.
The article originally appeared in the October 15 – 21, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
