A combination of tuition and fee increases, and cuts in the general fund and athletic department budgets may be the solution to coping with a potential 15 percent cut in state funds next year, Southwest Mississippi Community College trustees said Tuesday.
The trustees’ finance and athletic committees are expected to meet to discuss the school’s 2010-’11 budget. No meeting date has been set, but Grady Smith, vice president of business affairs, said the committees will have to prepare their recommendations before the trustees’ April 12 board meeting.
Because students pre-register for the fall semester in April, any increase in tuition and fees will have to be made before then, Smith said.
“The committees will have to give the board direction,” he said.
He said after the meeting that the college has been hit by a series of cuts since 2000.
SMCC lost $1 million through state cuts between 2000 and 2006, Smith said. And while about $800,000 of that $1 million was restored in 2008, Smith said state officials have continued to make cuts in community college funds.
Between April 2009 and this month SMCC has lost $1.1 million in state funds, Smith said.
“There is no way to recover that,” he said.
He said the college has made cuts in practically every budget area except salaries, which is 80 percent of SMCC’s current $14.96 million budget. The athletic budget comprises $1.982 million of that fund.
Smith said SMCC officials have tried to make sure no one loses his or her job at the college, which has reduced the payroll through attrition, meaning that many job vacancies have not been filled.
“We have been running lean,” he said.
