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QuickTake:
The college’s 2026-27 budget needed eight yes votes to pass in a Budget Committee meeting. It got seven, as some members sought another meeting to gather more information. So the committee will meet again next week.
The Lane Community College Budget Committee needed eight votes Wednesday, May 20, to approve the college’s budget for the 2026-27 academic year.
It got seven.
So the committee will return for another meeting May 27 to decide whether to recommend the proposed budget and advance it to LCC’s Board of Education. That meeting is set for 5 p.m. at the LCC Boardroom.
The Budget Committee includes all seven members of the Board of the Education and seven community members.
The key issue at Wednesday’s meeting was whether another meeting was needed — to allow more time for members to ask questions, gather additional community comment and discuss the budget proposal in more detail.
Seven members — including three members of the Board of Education — thought the committee’s previous meetings had allowed enough time to do that. Board members who voted to approve the budget Wednesday were Kevin Alltucker, Steve Mital and Julie Weismann.
But five members of the Budget Committee — including another three members of the Board of Education — advocated for another meeting and therefore voted no. Board Chair Austin Fölnagy, Vice Chair Jerry Rust and Jesse Maldonado voted against. A seventh board member, Zachary Mulholland, abstained.
The 7-5 vote, with one abstention, was not sufficient to pass the budget. Brett Rowlett, LCC’s executive director of external affairs (and parliamentarian for Wednesday’s meeting) said that eight yes votes — a majority of the 14-member committee — were required.
A ‘really tight’ budget
LCC’s proposed budget for all funds is about $281.4 million. But the general fund — proposed at about $113.1 million for the next academic year — pays for most of the school’s operational costs, such as salaries, materials and supplies.
The proposed budget includes cuts of about $4.2 million, including the elimination of degree programs in criminal justice and health information management. Those cuts include the loss of about 23 full-time-equivalent positions.
The proposal does not include pulling any money from the college’s ending fund balance — essentially, its reserves — to balance the books.
The $4.2 million in cuts in the 2026-27 fiscal year budget are part of a three-year plan to trim spending at LCC by about $9.2 million. The goal is to return the college’s ending fund balance to a level equal to 10% of the general fund, as called for in board policy. The proposed budget projects an ending fund balance at the end of FY 2026-27 of about 6.2%.
LCC budget officials have characterized the proposed budget as “really tight.”
And that prompted questions and comments from committee members who pushed for an additional meeting.
Mulholland, for example, noted an earlier board meeting at which members voted to limit tuition increases to 1.2% for the next academic year. On Wednesday, he worried whether that decision had foreclosed a potential avenue to raise additional revenue if that became necessary.
“I’m concerned that there’s basically no wiggle room,” he said. “The only place we’ll have to turn is to continue spending down reserves, which every year get a little bit lower, I guess.”
But students urged the committee not to increase tuition beyond the 1.2% increase the Board of Education already had approved.
“You do not see the students’ struggles if you do not feel our pain,” said Amelia Hampton, a former president of LCC’s student government. “And raising tuition again, and to keep bringing it up, only furthers the pain of students who struggle to have a better education every single day.”
Charles Kimball, a citizen member, said it would be good to have the Budget Committee involved earlier in the process — and, in particular, argued that it should have been consulted as the Board of Education approved the 1.2% tuition increase.
Larissa Ennis, another citizen member, moved that the committee approve the budget: “I am personally satisfied with this process, with the answers to the questions we’ve asked … and I’m ready to approve this budget today.”
But Fölnagy and Rust, with backing from Jim Arnold, a new citizen member of the committee, pushed for the extra meeting.
“What I’ve heard from Austin as he stated tonight is that he has more questions about this document and wants to dive deeper into it before we approve it,” Arnold said. “I’m not opposed to that.”
Fölnagy recommended that three hours be allocated for next week’s meeting. “It doesn’t have to be three,” he said, “but I hope that we can have more time for discussion later than an hour.”
The Budget Committee meetings thus far have generally lasted about an hour, with one meeting lasting about 90 minutes.
