Montgomery College will delay hiring for all nonessential administrative positions and staff for three months in an effort to comply with County Executive Ike Leggett’s request that all agencies slash up to 2 percent of their budgets, school officials have announced.

The hiring delay, along with another cost-saving effort announced last week by college President Brian K. Johnson preventing all nonessential expenditures, is expected to save $2 million, or 2 percent of the $100 million the school received from the county during the current fiscal year.

“Our goal is to minimize the impact on classroom instruction

as much as possible,” college spokesman Steve Simon said Thursday.

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The decision is not expected to affect hiring for full-time faculty, who would not begin new jobs until August, which falls in the coming fiscal year that begins July 1, Simon said. Other positions that would still be filled include child care workers and security staff. In addition, some positions that had already been advertised will be filled, he said.

Leggett has asked all government agencies to slash their budgets in an attempt to shore up an anticipated $401 million budget in fiscal 2009. So far, the agencies have ponied up about $36 million in proposed cuts, Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield said.

Simon said Johnson’s proposals represent the “best-case scenario.” No layoffs are planned, he added.

“The question then becomes, what’s the situation going to look like in the coming year?,” Simon said.

That’s the same question Liz Brandenburg, president of the college’s employee union, is wondering. She said she is worried that the cuts could send the message to the county that the delays mean the positions are expendable at the same time that demand for classes and added instructional space is at an all-time high.

“We are stacked up against the wall,” Brandenburg said. “We have no wiggle room at all. [County officials] need to really look at what they want in the future, and we are the future. We will always be the future. If the work force needs something, we take care of it.”

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com