LCC board to consider 2025-26 budget Wednesday 

Officials at Lane Community College have proposed a $108.1 million general fund budget for the 2025-26 school year, but the plan doesn’t call for spending all that money: $4.1 million will be socked away into a contingency fund, part of an effort to rebuild the college’s ending fund balance — essentially, its reserves.

The budget represents a first step in a process to rebuild the ending fund balance to the level required by college policy — and that, officials say, will require additional budget cuts, totaling nearly $10 million, stretching into the 2028-29 school year.

LCC’s Board of Education has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed budget at its Wednesday meeting. The board also is expected to consider approving the budget — which must be finished by the end of June for the fiscal year starting July 1.

At its May 21 meeting, LCC’s budget committee gave the green light to what college officials called a “sustainable” proposal for its general fund, the budget fund most closely associated with college operational costs.

The proposed general fund budget does not draw on any of LCC’s ending fund balance — estimated at $8.6 million — leaving that amount intact. Even so, the proposed budget lifts the ending fund balance to only about 8% of the general fund, less than the 10% called for by board of education policy.

Getting that percentage above 10% will require years — and will also require bringing LCC’s annual spending in line with what it collects in revenue, said Kara Flath, the college’s vice president of finance and operations. She said in recent years, LCC has been spending about 2% more in its general fund than it collects annually.

“So now we have to figure out how to get back on track so that we sustain our ending fund balance and build it back up,” Flath said.

To trim general fund spending required LCC budgeters to cut some $5 million from an earlier version of the proposed budget. Cuts included $675,000 from programs and services; $648,369 by continuing a hiring freeze for five positions; $225,000 in operational adjustments in information technology; $180,000 from managers’ benefits.

The reductions set the stage for additional cuts over the three subsequent years — amounting to cuts of about $3.2 million each year — LCC officials said.

To help identify possible cutbacks, the college plans to launch a strategic planning process beginning January 2026. Jenna McCulley, LCC’s interim senior adviser for strategic communication, said the process will involve engagement from stakeholders and other interested parties.

The cuts will impact LCC, Flath said.

“It’s not without hardship,” she said. “Our plan is to strategically look at everything we’re doing and continue the positive growth that we have. We want to keep all our staff whole to the greatest extent possible. And we want to stay on track with having what we’re calling the sustainable budget.”

Adrienne Mitchell, president of the Lane Community College Education Association, said the budget the board of education will consider Wednesday is an improvement over the initial proposal in that it doesn’t require any money from the ending fund balance.

But Mitchell said she was concerned about an increase in administrative positions, from 72 to 79, even though LCC’s enrollment has declined by more than half over the last 15 years. (After years of decline, LCC’s enrollment has grown over the last four years and now is at about 6,430 full-time equivalent students, including distance learners.)

Mitchell also said she was worried that LCC administrators have been making decisions about potential cuts without the full involvement of the college’s Board of Education.

“We have a publicly elected board that fulfills a critical democratic function for the people of Lane County in providing oversight to the institution,” Mitchell said, arguing that the board should be more involved with those decisions.

LCC’s total proposed budget for the next school year is about $282.8 million, but its general fund pays for nearly 90% of its payroll and more than half of its materials and supplies. The remainder of the budget is made up of other funds that are earmarked for separate areas — student aid, for example, or money raised by LCC’s 2020 bond measure for capital improvement projects.

Most of LCC’s general fund revenue comes from three sources: tuition, property taxes and state support. Because state support hinges on enrollment, the recent enrollment gains at LCC have been welcome — but college officials still must begin budgeting work before they know how much the Legislature will allocate to Oregon community colleges. 

If you go

The Lane Community College Board of Education meets Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the boardroom of Building 3 on the LCC main campus, 4000 E. 30th Ave., Eugene. The meeting will be livestreamed. Testimony for the public hearing will be accepted in person or via Zoom; people who wish to testify online are asked to register beforehand at this link.