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How much lower can our budget go?
Budget woes continue; college faces further reduction in state support
The Advocate
Mt. Hood Community College is facing more budget cuts for the 2009-2011 biennium, with a reduction of $2.5 million per biennium year a near certainty, according to college President John Sygielski.
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Unless anything in the state Legislature changes before MHCC’s October board meeting, Sygielski said the college is looking at state support of $22.5 million per year – down from the already reduced $25 million the college was looking at prior to the end of spring term 2009.
“It’s better than we feared,” said Sygielski. “The discussion was as low as $18 million to $20 million prior to the significant role our state representatives and senators played in keeping that number as high as possible.”
Sygielski said he and the rest of the MHCC staff would take pay cuts to soften the blow to the college’s budget.
“Everyone in the college is giving back pay in the form of days worked,” said Sygielski. “The faculty is giving back four days, and administrators and all other staff are giving back five.”
Sygielski said the staff other than administrators and faculty would also rescind their cost of living increase of 2.7 percent.
“Ten faculty positions were compromised,” said Sygielski. “But our goal is to not lay off anyone. We’d like to stick to that mantra.”
According to JoAnn Zahn, vice president of administrative services, 45 percent of MHCC’s annual resources come from state support.
“We as an institution can be negatively affected by any revenue problems at the state level,” said Zahn. “Anything that would impact available resources would be a definite negative.”
With about 130,000 petition signatures submitted last week to require a vote on two new taxes on corporations and wealthiest 3 percent of Oregonians, the probable ballot measure in January would also affect the college’s finances in a “very negative way,” according to Zahn.
The measure would allow Oregonians to vote on whether the taxes on corporations and the wealthiest citizens should be eliminated – a measure that could force all Oregon schools to make even deeper budget cuts.
“It’s too early to know how badly the bill would affect us,” said Zahn. “But it would be a negative, for sure.”
The projected increases in enrollment are positives, Sygielski and Zahn said, but how much more revenue they would give the college is also another question mark.
“We won’t be able to grasp enrollment until the term is well underway,” said Zahn. “We need to do what is in the best interest of the college. The extra money might end up being spent creating new sections for classes that are overloaded. There’s not really a way to tell right now.”
Increases in enrollment could go a long way toward helping the college’s ending fund balance as well, which is at an all-time low, according to Sygielski.
“Right now we’re at about $920,000,” said Sygielski. “Our annual budget is about $52 million right now, and $41 million of that is spent on salaries, wages and fringe benefits. Another $10 million is spent on operations. That leaves us with not a lot of money at the end of the year.”
That balance is worse this year than last year – Sygielski’s first as president – and well short of the goal of 5 percent.
“Right now we’re looking at applying for more federal grants and organizing fund-raising campaigns to try and get that going back in a positive direction,” said Sygielski. “We need to end the year with 5 percent of our money still available as an emergency fund.”
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