GCCC Trustees Approve 2019-2020 Budget in July 16 Meeting

[Garden City, KS, July 17, 2019–] During a regularly scheduled meeting on July 16, the Board of Trustees for Garden City Community College received a presentation from the Kansas Association of Community College Trustees (KACCT) regarding economic and state budget trends and voted to approve the 2019-2020 budget, which includes approval to lower the GCCC operating reserves by just over 2% while keeping the mil levy flat.

KACCT Economic and State Budget Trends Presentation

The Board received a presentation from a representative of the KACCT regarding workforce, economic, and state budget trends, including information about legislative action regarding state funding for community and technical colleges. Included in the presented information were details about the legislative action to fund 4.5 million for the Kansas Excel in CTE initiative enrollment for fiscal year 2019 and spotlights on the $62,007 new non-tiered allocations and $1,453 new tiered allocations earmarked for Garden City Community College.

Approval of 2019-2020 Budget

After reviewing four options presented by the GCCC Administration, the Board voted and passed Scenario 1–by a margin of four votes to two votes–approving the request for General Fund levied dollars to total $10,173,241. The scenario includes the Board’s approval to use the college’s operating reserves to pay for tax increment financing, diminishing the reserves from the estimated 20.18% carryover to an estimated 18.07%.

Scenario 2 would have increased the mill levy by .735. Scenario 3 would have lowered the reserves to 19.03% and increased the mill levy by .361 or to 20.747. Scenario 4 would have kept the reserves and mill levy flat with total levied dollars at $9,819,117, leaving some budget priorities, including increases to adjunct pay, an additional safety officer, and additional college vehicles unfunded.