More cuts, small tuition increase in the works at Lane Community College 

A closely divided Lane Community College Board of Education approved a plan Wednesday, March 4, calling for an additional $1.4 million in potential spending cutbacks next school year, on top of $3 million in cuts the board previously greenlit.

In a related item Wednesday, the board approved a 1.2% tuition increase for the next school year. That means LCC students will pay $151 per credit hour next school year, an increase of $2. The board decided against increasing other mandatory fees.

The board approved the updated budget “mitigation plan” on a 4-3 vote after a discussion that resurfaced an issue that divided members during the last year: To what extent should the board primarily focus on overall governance rather than delving deeply into operational issues?

Some board members said they were uncomfortable voting to approve the revised plan without a clearer sense of where the cuts would come from in LCC’s roughly $108 million general fund. The plan envisions a net reduction of 22.5 full-time equivalent positions.

Other board members said there was no need at this point to see a detailed accounting of possible cuts and emphasized the plan is intended as a framework as LCC develops its 2026-27 budget.

“I don’t know how we get past this impasse of understanding (that) it is not our role to get into the weeds of a budget,” board member Julie Weismann said. 

The mitigation plan

The board approved the three-year mitigation plan in January. The plan seeks to return LCC’s ending fund balance (essentially, its reserves) to an amount equaling about 10% of its general fund, as required by board policy. LCC’s projected ending fund balance for the current school year is 7.45%.

The plan approved in January calls for cutting $3 million from its 2026-27 budget and $2.5 million each of the following two years. Without the cuts, LCC financial officials say the college would continue to spend more than it takes in, and its ending fund balance percentage would drop to 5.03% by the end of fiscal year 2029.

The plan also says making those budget cuts would free money for what officials call “strategic investments,” including eliminating deficits in certain LCC funds, developing new programs and funding deferred maintenance and information technology projects. 

But the updated plan presented Wednesday by Kara Flath, LCC’s vice president for finance and operations, called for an additional $1.4 million in cuts during the 2026-27 school year on top of the original $3 million.

Flath’s presentation pointed to two main factors driving the increased amount: One was a possible cut of up to $1 million in state funding for LCC in the next school year.

The other, she said, involved the tentative collective bargaining agreements the college administration recently reached with its primary unions. She said commitments in those contracts could cost about $400,000 more than originally anticipated.

Taken together, that added $1.4 million to the amount needing to be cut to keep the three-year mitigation plan on track.

But Flath said some factors remain in play: For example, although the Legislature is still in session, a cut in state funding to community colleges is no longer expected, which could reduce the total amount to be trimmed by $1 million.

Other factors could affect the forecast as well: Flath said tuition revenue is coming in lower than predicted. And the three-year mitigation plan assumes a higher increase in tuition than the 1.2% approved Wednesday; that could cost the college about $600,000 in revenue.

Flath said Thursday that LCC’s finance team would revise the mitigation amount needed for a break-even budget for 2026-27.

LCC officials have not yet publicly identified potential areas to cut, but President Stephanie Bulger has said the board would have a list of prospective cuts to review this spring — and said more details would be available by the board’s March 18 work session in Florence.

The plan Flath presented Wednesday splits the overall potential cuts into three areas:

• Operations: $2,017,150, with a loss of 15 FTEs
• Support services: $1.4 million, with the loss of 6.5 FTEs
• Academic programs: $982,850, with the loss of 1 FTE (Up to 5.5 faculty members would be “repurposed” — that is, transferred to teaching other classes.)

LCC has 797.85 FTEs, but only 648.65 of those work in areas covered by the college’s general fund, according to the adopted budget for the current school year.

Uncertainty about specific areas to be cut was a big reason why three board members — board Chair Austin Fölnagy, Vice Chair Jerry Rust and Zachary Mulholland — voted against approving the revised plan.

Mulholland said he felt “uncomfortable” voting for the plan. “This is still so amorphous. It’s got numbers, but I don’t actually know what the details are behind any of those numbers.”

Fölnagy said the revised plan “warrants additional discussion, which warrants even more opportunities for us to dive into the numbers, dive into what exactly we are doing here, and for us to then proceed with all the information, including what does the public feel, and what does the public say, about this?”

Board member Kevin Alltucker pushed back: “This is approval of a planning target. It is not a list of program cuts.”

The key vote on the motion came from Jesse Maldonado, who joined the board with Rust last July.

“This isn’t fun,” he said. “This sucks. But I do think we’re at a point where we have to live within our means. … If we don’t do this right now, at least give the staff time to put more things together, we’re going to end up in a place where we don’t want to be.” 

Adrienne Mitchell, president of the Lane Community College Education Association, LCC’s faculty union, said she was disappointed in the board’s decision, which she said was unnecessary, in part because the state funding for community colleges will stay steady. She said the board has “abdicated” its responsibility in voting for the plan without a firmer idea of where the cuts would be made.

Tuition increase

The proposal for a 1.2% increase in tuition was forwarded by LCC’s Budget Development Subcommittee and endorsed by Bulger.

Amelia Hampton, president of LCC’s student government (and a nonvoting member of the board), also advocated for the 1.2% increase, even though the three-year plan assumed a 3.3% increase. 

“You say you stand with students,” Hampton told the board. “We are already the second most expensive community college in the state — and will be even with just a 1.2% increase. … Please stand with us and do not consider a motion that is higher than 1.2%.”

The board approved the motion without opposition, but board member Steve Mital worried that approving an increase lower than in previous years might send a wrong message to state lawmakers and others that LCC was in a stronger financial position than it actually is.

And Mulholland worried about setting the tuition rate without having a stronger sense of potential tradeoffs between tuition revenue and cutbacks. “I am concerned that by setting this as a benchmark, we’re setting ourselves up for even more painful decisions later,” he said.

The board elected to keep mandatory fees at their current rates for the next school year. 

Classified contract ratified

The board also agreed to ratify an employment contract with the Lane Community College Employee Federation, the union that represents LCC’s classified workers. The agreement, which had been approved in a vote of union members, calls for a retroactive 3% cost of living adjustment beginning in July 2025 and another 3% effective July 2026.

Members of the faculty union are voting on a tentative four-year contract now, said Mitchell, the union’s president. Results of the vote could be available by March 18.