During the board meetings that took place during the weekend of Feb. 27-28, the board’s finance committee heard and approved the recommendations of the Budget Committee and approved in principle a 5.5 percent increase in traditional student tuition and a 5.6 percent increase in fees for CCE students.”The big issues at this year’s meetings were regarding the tuition and the budget of 2009-2010,” said Bryan. “We approved an increase in tuition because it is necessary to balance the budget.”

According to Hayton, 78 percent of the college’s operating budget is dependent on tuition and fees from enrollment.

At this year’s February meeting the Budget Committee recommended rates for tuition and fees for fall 2009, unlike recent years where they recommended a full budget.

“This will allow the committee to have a clearer enrollment picture before we recommend a complete budget at the next board meeting,” said Community Senate treasurer Will Vormelker, who serves as the student representative on the budget committee.

According to a Budget Committee report, “The budget will incorporate any changes in the enrollment projections since February, first session summer school registrations, and other unanticipated revenues and expenses, in time for the start of the fiscal year on July 1.”

Final revisions will be made at the October 2009 board meeting where the trustees will review and approve final budget revisions in light of Oct. 1 official enrollment numbers.

“We asked the trustees to pass what was called the 2009-2010 budget in principle because there are many unknowns on enrollment for next fall,” said Vice-President for Finance and Administration Jerry Boothby. “What the board passed was simply based on what we knew at this point.”

Vormelker said that the Budget Committee came up with enrollmment data on a better case, a middle case, and a worse case scenario and brought these numbers before the board so they could make a preliminary decision, despite the many unknown variables.

“Given the uncertainty of the current economic crisis, the Budget Committee wanted to ensure that the school could continue to operate no matter the enrollment situation,” said Vormelker. “Under the worse case scenario the committee would be required to close a $2.7 million budget gap. Having cut expenses as far as possible, including reductions in staff, part-time faculty, facilities, and the Strategic Long-Range Plan, the only remaining way to close the gap was to raise tuition and fees.”

Hayton said that it is necessary to place tuition increase in a nationwide context.

“The increase for room and board reflects an increase in the cost for food nationwide,” said Hayton, “Also, this increase in tuition and fees needs to be placed in a nationwide context where higher education costs continue to increase, as charted by the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI).”

According to the Budget Committee report, “the current worse case revenue scenario projects net operating revenue of $51.6 million, and total expense requests of $53.9 million.”

The Budget Committee utilized the worse case scenario to develop a balanced 2009-10 budget, with a current budget estimate of $51.6 million.

According to the report, “essentially, this scenario combines the pessimistic forecasts of lower revenue and higher expenses.”

The report highlighted the major elements that will determine the budget in the worse case scenario: “360 traditional first year students in the fall (versus over 400 students for the previous five years, including 406 last falls 2008), a resumption of faculty and staff raises, and an increase in capital spending.”

According to Hayton, these factors, as well as other assumptions, have created roughly a $2.2 million shortfall between the Committee’s strategic goals and the available revenue that must be closed.

This means that a $2.2 million shortfall in revenue needs to be reconciled by the May meeting.

The Budget Committee report states “This is an extremely difficult budget to prepare because of the continuing economic downturn and volatile enrollment patterns, and their impact on the total revenue available to fund campus initiatives and expenses.”

Bryan said that despite the fact that the trustees did not want to put further strains on the families, they had to approve a tuition increase.

“Many members of the board of trustees talked about the implications that an increase in tuition and fees would have on the students,” said Boothby. “The underlying principle of the meeting is that the trustees are very sensitive to families and their economic conditions and what can be done to help them.