The Kaskaskia College Board was presented a tentative budget for the coming fiscal year at their meeting Monday night.
College President George Evans says the budget includes revenues of $26.9-million and expenditures of $27.6-million dollars.
“We anticipate about a $1.5-million deficit because of the uncertainty coming out of the pandemic and where our enrollments were at. So obviously enrollment has rebounded very nicely. We were able to cut that $1.5-million in half. We’re now looking at adding the year with a $750,000 deficit when we actually predicted a $1.5 million deficit. I’m very pleased with the hard work and fiscal conservatism. I also want to point out that we have a very very strong reserve and we did anticipate deficit spending for this year.”
Evans says the 2022 project budget results were also better than expected due to corporate personal property replacement tax exceeding the state’s expectations by $ 1 million and the sale of the Workforce building in downtown Centralia, a portion of the Salem Education as well as other equipment providing an additional $600,000 in revenue. On the expense side Evans reports open positions cut $400,000 in expenses, less than anticipated health care expenses of $600,000, and a half-million dollar savings in capital expenditures that ended up being grant funded. The tentative budget will come before the board for final approval at the September meeting.
The fiscal year ’23 tentative budget will be on display for public review at the office of the Vice President of Administrative Services or on the Kaskaskia College website, https://www.kaskaskia.edu/about-kc/consumer-information.
The college board gave final approval to a new four-year contract agreement with the faculty member union that runs through the summer of 2026. The 64 members will receive a three percent increase each of the first two years, 2.75-percent in the third, and 2.5 percent in the fourth. Evans says if the college surpasses pre-COVID enrollment numbers by the third year each faculty member will receive a $500 bonus. In the fourth year, a $500 bonus will be given if the college’s enrollment is one-percent above the pre-COVID numbers. Evans says the same $500 bonus program will be rolled out to all other college unions and employees as well.
In personnel matters, the board approved the hire of Rebecca Hitpas for the new grant-funded position of Early Childhood Consortium Coach. Kevin Hodge was promoted to full-time Safety and Security Officer and Kevin Kink was hired as a security officer.
The board accepted resignations from Human Resources Specialist Bridget McConnell, Food Service Manager Seth Orrill, and Safety and Security Officer Josh Adkins.
The board also accepted Online Student Support Specialist Joyce Pryor’s notice for retirement, effective July 31, 2023.
