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Some members of the Lane Community College Board of Education say the three-year plan that identifies how much needs to be cut is incomplete in that it doesn’t include areas to trim. Adminstrators said they just need an OK on the bottom line so they can return to the board in March with more budget specifics.
The Lane Community College Board of Education got a second look Wednesday, Dec. 17, at a plan to trim spending by $8 million at LCC over the next three school years, and some board members repeated worries that the plan doesn’t yet include specific areas to cut.
Board member Zachary Mulholland said he would ask board Chair Austin Fölnagy to convene a subcommittee to “refine” the plan in consultation with LCC President Stephanie Bulger and make a recommendation to the full board.
Mulholland said that would allow the board to “move forward and get a plan that the entire board and the entire community can be proud of.”
Fölnagy was unable to attend the meeting because Tuesday’s storm closed Highway 126 east of Springfield and knocked out power and internet access to his house.
Reached Thursday morning by email, Fölnagy said he was reviewing video from Wednesday’s work session and planned to reach out to Mulholland for “additional information about his request.” He said he would coordinate with Bulger and Jerry Rust, the board’s vice chair, about next steps.
The three-year plan
The plan stems from a board policy calling for the college to maintain an ending fund balance (essentially, its reserves) amounting to 10% of its general fund. LCC’s budgeted general fund for the current school year is about $108.1 million, and the projected ending fund balance is 7.45% of that.
Without making adjustments — which would include cuts of $3 million from its 2026-27 budget and $2.5 million in each of the two following years — LCC financial officers said the ending fund balance would drop to 5.03% by the end of fiscal year 2029.
During a previous presentation, the officers wrote that a 10% ending fund balance is considered “the minimum safe reserve level for community colleges because it protects the institution from financial instability and unexpected events,” among other reasons.
The plan also says that making those budget cuts would also free up money for “strategic investments,” including eliminating deficits in certain LCC subfunds, developing new programs and funding deferred maintenance and IT capital projects.
The plan does not include suggested areas for cuts, and that has triggered heartburn for some board members.
Having a list of tentative cuts would allow the board to “actually know what the trade-offs are and what we’re actually giving up when we say, ‘We’re going to approve this plan,’ because I don’t think that’s clear at all,” Mulholland said.
College administrators have said they would bring a tentative list of cutbacks to the board in March. Kara Flath, LCC’s vice president of finance and operations, said administrators would work with the College Council (the college’s main planning and policy body) and its Budget Development Subcommittee to review the framework for next year’s budget and would continue “listening and feedback sessions” before returning to the board in March.
An ‘appetite to make hard decisions’
Wednesday’s meeting was a work session, so the board could not take official action. But administrators are hoping the board will approve the three-year plan at its Jan. 7 meeting. It was not clear Thursday if creating a subcommittee could delay the vote.
Flath said board approval of the plan was a necessary precursor to the difficult conversations about cutbacks. Without that approval, “there isn’t an appetite to make some hard decisions, if that makes sense. So what we’re asking for is just support for that conversation.”
Some board members panned the idea of a subcommittee to refine the plan.
Julie Weismann said it was sufficient at this point just to have a target amount — $8 million in cuts over the next three years — and that the specifics could wait.
“You can’t have budget development without a bottom-line number, and kicking it down the road (will create) all kinds of mischief, chaos and problems,” she said.
Board member Kevin Alltucker worried that not approving the plan in January would mean the board would continue to be out of compliance with its policy requiring the 10% ending fund balance, and that potentially could raise accreditation concerns.
None of the board members at Wednesday’s work session questioned the need for the budget cutbacks.
The board’s work session Wednesday lasted 117 minutes and did not include public comment. It was followed by an executive session that lasted 110 minutes.
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