The lowest-paid employees at area community colleges will get hit with some of the highest pay cuts next school year.

State Center Community College administrators announced a budget plan last week that will cut employee salaries by as much as 5% to close a projected $20 million budget shortfall from a massive reduction in state funding next year.

District employees also will have to pay more for benefits, but the budget plan would avoid layoffs.

While no employees are spared -- even district Chancellor Deborah Blue will see her salary cut from $225,000 to just more than $213,000 -- support staff, whose wages are lower, will lose a bigger percentage of their pay.

Staff working in financial aid, records and admissions, custodial and other clerical or operational jobs will take a 4% pay cut, while teaching faculty will lose 2%. The average salary for full-time faculty is nearly twice that of nonteaching staff.

State Center, which includes six colleges across Madera and Fresno counties, employs 1,220 full-time faculty and staff.

"It's unfair and it's very scary," said Amber Fowler, a financial aid assistant at Reedley College. "The ones who earn the most are having the least pay cut."

Fowler, who has worked full time at the college since 2003, earns $57,000 a year. The sole earner in her household, Fowler cares for her ailing grandmother and recently adopted a son.

Under the announced pay cuts, Fowler's monthly wages would drop by $200, which "could put me and my family in a real hardship situation where bills might not get paid," she said.

The inequity results from a state law that requires community colleges to spend at least 50% of the general fund budget on classroom instruction. To meet that requirement, officials said they had to cap teacher pay cuts at 2%.

State Center has not cut salaries or imposed furloughs in recent memory, according to some faculty and officials. The proposed budget also would cut managers' salaries by 5%.

The salary cuts would take effect July 1 and are based on a worst-case scenario -- which is, at this point, also the most likely scenario, district officials said.

State Center officials are not counting on Proposition 98, the state's guarantee for K-12 and community college funding, or the tax extensions the governor has proposed.

"It's become quite obvious that we need to prepare for the worst," said Willard Wright, the district's interim vice chancellor of finance and administration.

Under the worst-case scenario, community colleges statewide would face $400 million in cuts in the governor's proposed budget. If Prop. 98 is suspended and the tax extensions aren't approved, the statewide revenue loss would reach $805 million. State Center would lose $19.4 million, or 14% of its total budget.

If State Center winds up with more money than expected, it will go back into employee salaries, finance administrators said.

The State Center budget also would require employees to pay an additional $200 per month for benefits, cut trustees' monthly pay from $750 to $550, and could eliminate 500 to 1,000 courses in the spring of 2012.

The district's colleges released their Fall 2011 schedules in January and will offer all of the courses listed.

Spring courses that could be cut are those with fewer than 15 students, and physical education and performing arts classes that aren't required for a degree.

Although enrollments next year will drop, State Center will be able to enroll thousands more students than state budget funds will cover by making changes to staffing and increasing class sizes.

The district's tradition of conservative financial practices, which include maintaining an emergency reserve larger than other districts' and a pay-as-you-go policy that has left the district with nearly no debt, allows it to better weather the budget cuts, said Edwin Eng, State Center's director of finance.

The 2012-13 school year, though, could be a different situation.

If the budget does not improve, layoffs could be unavoidable and students could face a $20 per-unit increase in fees, Blue said. Student fees already were increased from $26 to $36 per unit for next fall.