Budget plan a framework.

Byline: The Register-Guard

ALTHOUGH Lane Community College board members have approved a variety of cuts and a steep tuition increase to balance next year's budget, their work on a 2002-03 spending plan is not over.

The proposal approved by board members last week provides only a framework. LCC President Mary Spilde and her staff still must create the full annual budget and present it to the college budget committee, which will consider the plan and hold public hearings before sending it along to the board for approval.

The schedule now calls for the budget to be printed in late April with the first budget committee meeting May 1. It usually takes three meetings for the committee to go over the budget, and the final budget hearing usually takes place at the board's June meeting.

Additional time and meetings can be added as needed, but the college must have a budget in place when the fiscal year begins July 1.

Spilde has said it was necessary to bring the proposed cuts and tuition increase before the board first because only the board has the authority to eliminate programs or raise prices. Without having action on those issues, the administration's ability to balance the budget would have remained in doubt until late in the fiscal year with little time to make changes if the board didn't support parts of the plan.

Marie Matsen, LCC's vice president for operations, said Oregon law gives budget committees power to review the overall budget and make sure spending is in line with revenue. With their limited meeting schedule, budget panels aren't meant to make wholesale revisions in programs and revenue.

"That's just too much to ask," Matsen said. "The budget committee, according to Oregon law, was set up to mainly deal with the revenue question."

Although Spilde said putting together a full budget proposal will be a bit easier now that the board has approved the framework, some issues remain to be settled. One that still looms large is a proposal from LCC's faculty union that attempts to balance the budget without making any cuts in education programs.

Board members chose to take action on the budget framework last Monday even though faculty leaders urged them to wait long enough for them to show that their plan could save programs. But they left the door open to consider the plan at their next meeting, on April 10.

The LCC Education Association plan includes the same $10 tuition increase per credit hour as the administration plan as well as the same cuts to non-educational programs, including administration and support staff. But it challenges the administration's projections for revenue and spending.

Using the past six years as a guide, the union says the college has consistently underestimated revenue and overestimated expenses. Faculty say that by adjusting the two projections to take those variations into account, the college would have enough money to fund education programs for another year.

That would provide breathing room for in-depth discussions both on campus and in the LCC community on longer-term proposals for saving the programs, faculty say.

But administrators disagree with some of the faculty's budget assumptions. Matsen said some costs weren't taken into account and said some of the "gap" cited in the plan amounts to carryover the college needs to get through the summer until tuition and state funds come in.

- Greg Bolt