Hard times for LSC

4/24/08

By Ben Holbrook
Managing Editor

Last night the VSC Board of Trustees approved a six percent tutition increase to offset a $500,000-$900,000 deficit, LSC President Carol Moore said in a mass e-mail sent out today.

"Also, the legislature appears to be prepared to raise the state allocation by 2.5 percent. If this comes to fruition, coupled with the tuition increase, our budget will have a little room to expand," Moore said in the e-mail.

Last Monday, Moore held an informational session to discuss the problems LSC is facing this year with a significant deficit.

Wayne Hamilton, Dean of Administration, discussed the deficit more in depth over the course of the meeting. Although such a deficit can pose a serious challenge for the school, “it’s not unusual to show a first cut deficit,” Hamilton said.

A large portion of LSC’s funding is generated from student tuition and fees and the enrollment for the fall of 2009, “is not looking as promising and we are a bit concerned about that,” Hamilton said.

LSC is not the only college experiencing issues with their budgets this year. All of the other colleges in the VSC are also facing debts in large part due to a lack of funding from the state. Even though each college is facing the same deficit issues, it is still up to the individual college to adjust their budgets accordingly, Moore said.

President Moore, who is not unaccustomed to dealing with a deficit, was challenged during her first year at LSC when the school was in the red $800,000. During that time, Moore was forced to let staff members go in order to submit a balanced budget on time. Even with a significant deficit this year, “we’re not asking people to leave their position,” Moore said.

In order to balance the budget, cuts will most likely be made from the equipment budget, Moore said. The problem with cutting money from the equipment budget is that television studies and the meteorology programs need to update their equipment every few years, Moore said.

If there was an emergency situation where the college experienced a significant drop in the enrollment for the semester then there are emergency funds that can be acquired, Moore said.

The presidents of each college meet with the Chancellor on a monthly basis to discuss concerns and other business, Moore said.

The new building plans will still be going into effect and the money spent on the project does not affect the deficit since the students have already paid for the building, Hamilton said. “Legally we can use that money (new building fund) for any legitimate reason,” Hamilton said. The money however will still be used to construct the new building, Hamilton said.

One of the issues behind the deficit that has been a problem for a number of years at LSC deals with retention rates. Since LSC is funded in large part from the tuition fees, the school must maintain solid retention rates from semester to semester to keep from facing a deficit like this years.

In order to address this issue a student success task force was assembled to find ways to keep students at LSC. In the future, LSC would also like to initiate a program called Project Compass that would market to students from modest financial backgrounds.

LSC must submit a balanced budget by May 14 but, “we don’t know where admissions will land until September,” Moore said.