LUMBERTON — The Robeson Community College board of trustees on Monday approved its long-overdue fiscal year 2019-20 budget.
“We are in the third quarter of our semester and, yes, we are just now approving our budget,” Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Tami George said. “For us, a late budget is like in October.”
The college will be operating under a $29.7 million budget, George told board members on Monday.
Because the state’s budget was never approved, the college has been operating under a continuing budget since the beginning of the fall 2019 semester. The continuing budget, which allows operations to continue until a state budget is enacted, was based on the previous academic year’s spending level an full-time student enrollment.
Passage of Senate Bill 61 in October allowed the N.C. College System to say this is the money it has for the 2019-20 academic year and to plan accordingly.
George said the finance team knew what the full-time student enrollment numbers were so they were able to project the money that would be appropriated by the state and disseminated by the community college system. The allocated funds allows the college to work with actual numbers instead of estimates, George said.
“We’re better able to manage the year,” she said.
Extra money was allocated for Hurricane Florence repairs, George said.
“We were able to get hurricane funds and money for Workforce Development so we consider those wins,” George said.
Not included in the budget is a salary increase, which has not been approved by the state.
“That is coming back in front of the legislature on Jan. 14,” George said. “If something happens, the state board will issue us an additional allocation. If not, then we won’t get an additional allocation.”
Of the $29 million budget, $16.7 million was allocated by the N.C. Community College system on Dec. 11. This is about $1 million less than the 2018-19 funding because of the decrease in full-time enrollment.
“Based on this year’s numbers, we feel good about the next budget year,” George said.
During her enrollment update Monday, RCC Vice President of Instruction and Student Support Patrena Elliott told trustees that the current full-time enrollment is 1,708, which is 131 more than last year at this time.
Also on Monday, the board approved asking the county for an additional $400,000. The county already has allocated $2.5 million for the 2019-20 budget.
Of that $400,000, $150,000 would go toward safety operations and aesthetic repairs throughout the campus, said Kyle Chavis, trustee and RCC Finance Committee chairman. The remaining $250,000 would go toward constructing a building in which to relocate the maintenance equipment. The old maintenance building would be used to house more science classes and expand the Welding Department.
In addition, the trustees approved moving forward on redesigning the Law Enforcement building, with the agreement that the project does not exceed its budget.
The board also said goodbye to Regina Branch, who is resigning from her position as executive assistant. Branch has worked at RCC for 14 years.
“I didn’t take this decision lightly,” Branch said. “This isn’t goodbye, it’s see you soon.”
