NIC studies spending cuts
North Idaho College will cut back on equipment purchases, employee travel and temporary and part-time positions to cover a $615,000 shortfall, the college said Tuesday.
Enrollment is down for the third semester in a row, a direct product of the strong job market, school officials said. In that vein, the college in Coeur d’Alene is shifting its focus. It introduced a night manufacturing course that filled quickly. It is talking to local business owners about short-term or weekend training opportunities.
“The business community still has educational needs,” President Michael Burke said. “This is a bump in the road, but we can change what we’re doing to meet the changes in the economy.”
Burke met with his Cabinet Tuesday for the first round of talks about where to trim the $33.1 million budget. The heads of six areas – instruction, student services, administration and finance, college relations, president’s office, and planning and assessment – have been charged with cutting their operational budgets by 14.5 percent each.
The college is not looking to cut any full-time positions. Burke expects final decisions to be made Tuesday.
The largest single cut will be new computer servers. At $44,000, that’s about 7 percent of the total to be reduced. The rest will come in smaller cuts. Instead of sending employees outside for training, the college will do more internally. Instead of placing salaries from vacant positions in a contingency fund, the college will use the savings to cover other expenses.
The professional-technical department was not included in this cost-cutting exercise because the state reimburses the college for those costs.
Though NIC has a reserve fund, Burke said the college will not dip into that money.
“It’s just a matter of tightening our belts,” he said. “We’re not going to deficit spend. That’s not good long term for the institution.”
But for next year’s budget, Rolly Jurgens, the vice president for administrative services, said the college will look at realigning and reallocating funds, with the understanding that the enrollment situation may not change in the near future.
One area that college officials agreed they wouldn’t decrease the budget is marketing and advertising.
In the fall, the college will introduce a new academic program, radiography, as well as evening business classes, in an attempt to adapt to the changing economic environment.
Still, officials point out that this dip in enrollment isn’t unusual. More so than university students, community college students are more sensitive to trends in the economy, said Bruce Gifford, vice president for student services.
His department last summer called students who had registered for classes but didn’t pay tuition, to see why they changed their minds. Gifford said the top response was: I’ll be back, but this is a good time to work and earn money.