New committee impacts budget for 2010-11

In the midst of economic challenge, CC’s new budget-making process has recommended drastic new changes, including a new student activities fee.

This has been the first year of a new financing process at the college. In the past, there was an ad hoc committee that made budget recommendations, but at the end of last year the school created a standing Budget Committee to help streamline the budget process and get input from the campus community. The committee includes members of the staff, faculty, administration and student body.

“This is the first time there has been student input into the entire budget-making process,” Dean of the College/Faculty and faculty advisor to the committee Susan Ashley said.

CCSGA and the President’s Office handled the student appointments to the committee, emphasizing the classified nature of the position. “Material is highly confidential and the student is responsible for bringing student opinions to college fiscal spending,” the application reads.

In previous years CC printed a “Budget in Brief” that explained the financial situation in a way that was accessible to a wider audience. The 2007-2008 school year was the last time it was published. No one was able to explain why the practice was discontinued.

One of the changes affecting students specifically in the upcoming budget will be a new $350 fee for student activities. The fee will be mandatory for all students not on financial aid and is intended to provide a stable fund for student organizations and events. It will, in part, go to replace money spent on hockey tickets and entrance fees to campus events. 

Ashley said that the fee would help level the playing field for students of all income levels attending events, as it would be included in the overall cost of the college and thus included in financial aid considerations.

“As a student leader and as a student myself, I am so excited for this student fee,” said incoming CCSGA President Angela Cobian.

Of the $700,205 the fee is projected to produce, it will funnel funds to various clubs and departments on campus. Roughly $80,000 will go to providing Varsity hockey tickets to students and $145,213 will go to CCSGA. In addition, $23,000 will go to the Dean of Students Office, $10,000 will be spent on alcohol education programs conducted throughout the year and $31,000 is earmarked for arts and crafts so that the program will no longer have a supplies cost for students.

According to Cobian, much of the money will be used to increase the operations budget for campus clubs that apply for funds.

“The leftover will go to a special event fund,” she said. “So even if clubs don’t get an increase in operating budget, they can apply for that. It helps fund the bulk of events on campus.”

Cobian said that even though individuals may not necessarily spend $350 in a year on campus events, the money was necessary to cover the costs of putting on events. Vice President of Finance Robert Moore said that no studies were conducted to evaluate the average amount students spend on activities each year.

“It wasn’t approached that way,” he said. 

Moore said that more emphasis was placed on how peer schools handle student activity fees and what the school might be able to do with more activities money. He also said that an independent fund would provide a more stable source of income for student activities.

Cobian said she hoped the fund would encourage alumni contributions to the school by creating a link with groups across campus.

“When events are funded by your money it automatically gives you a link to various events on campus,” she said. “Several incidents have shown that we’re not as cohesive of a community as we think. Different clubs around campus are passionate about their own niches and don’t attend other clubs’ events.” She said she hopes the fee will encourage more co-mingling of different interest groups on campus.

Cobian also said that students will have a say in where the funds go. “We want students to have ownership of the funds,” she said. “If they don’t think something deserves to be included, it won’t be. If it doesn’t get used, it obviously means we don’t need it, and we’ll redirect it.”

The Budget Committee approved the student fee and the rest of the budget in February. The committee presented their recommendations to President Celeste who will share them with the Board of Trustees this coming week. Moore said that it is likely Celeste will recommend the budget much as it was presented to him. 

One of the first issues the committee tried to address is the cost of attendance.

“Our first goal was keeping tuition and fees as low as possible for students,” Ashley said.

The Budget Committee limited the increase in cost of CC attendance to 2.7 percent for next year, a relatively small annual increase, which Ashley said they were able to do by freezing the cost of room and board.

“I don’t remember the last time that happened,” she said. “You can’t talk to anyone else about your tuition because that’s considered price fixing. But as far as we can tell [the increase] is on the low side.”

Ashley said that this region of Colorado saw negative inflation last year, but that if inflation began going up the college would not be able to hold the operating budget from increasing as well.

The committee put forth great efforts to manage debt since the economy began falling, Ashley said, adding that a major goal for this year was balancing the budget. “Which I think is a good thing,” she added with a laugh.

When CC constructed buildings like Cornerstone out of the Renovation and Renewal budget, they had to borrow money to do so. Moore explained that with debt payments, you can either put them directly towards paying off the debt or you can invest them to get more money towards debt payment. Originally, CC invested this money in variable rate mortgages.

Variable rate mortgages follow overall market interest rates and can change depending one how the economy is doing.

“Sometimes [the rate] was good, sometimes it was bad,” Moore said. When the economy fell, suddenly the rates got very, very bad. At one point, Moore said the interest rate went up to 18 percent. This year, CC is converting from variable to fixed mortgages to stabilize the rates of debt payment.

Another change will be that this year, the faculty and staff salary pools will increase by 2 percent. Last year, Moore said, the pool increased by less than a tenth of a percent. As well, CC emphasizes that this year it will be able to provide 80 percent of healthcare payments to all employees.

“That’s pretty cool in this economy,” Moore said.

Moore said that there will be some leftover money from the budget this year that can go to what he called “strategic investment,” which will “address the most important needs on campus,” he said.

Ashley said that last year many departments had their paraprofs cut or reduced, and teachers were given incentives to retire. “I’m guessing [the leftover money] is going to be used for restoring some of the cuts from last year,” she said.

Because of the recent budget difficulties, Moore said the school is trying to build up a reserve fund.

“We should have a positive reserve of around $900,000,” he said. “However, if we were to have ten students who said that they’re coming and then say in August that they’re not coming, that’s almost half a million that we’ve lost, so we’re very sensitive to individual decisions.”