College To Receive Less Funding Than Expected

Thursday, March 20, 2008 03:02 PM

Prince George - The College of New Caledonia has been advised by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education that its operating grant for 2008/09 will be $27.4 million, a 2.6% decrease from its anticipated base grant. Targeted funding for specific programs will increase by $1.3 million, of which $1 million was expected by the College and relates to the new Medical Lab Technology program and to fund negotiated salary increases.

New unanticipated funding increases include an additional $843,400 in targeted funding to offer a total of 133 new full-time equivalent seats in Early Childhood Education online, Trades, and Health Sciences, plus $139,600 to fund required pension costs.

However, this amount is offset by the unexpected 2.6% reduction to the base grant of $686,511, leaving a net increase of only $296,489 to offer the 133 new seats.

The 133 new seats are important, but CNC President John Bowman adds, “The specific nature of targeted funding means the college will be further challenged to meet and respond to community demands to offer programs in non-targeted areas.”

On average, spaces in Trades and Health programs cost more than $10,000 each to offer; therefore, this funding of $2,225 per space will prove challenging for the College.

Communications from the Assistant Deputy Minister for the BC Ministry of Advanced Education have identified the focus on moving available resources away from previously approved seat growth and into targeted areas. In addition, the greater accountability and clarification of expectations of colleges to align with government system-wide goals will be required in the form of GLEs (Government Letters of Expectation) that the CNC Board of Directors will be required to sign.

“The difficult budget decisions CNC has recently made will hopefully allow the college to deal with the unexpected base grant reduction without any additional major cuts. We are still analyzing the details, and do not yet have official correspondence from the Ministry confirming any of this information,” says Penny Fahlman, CNC’s Vice-President Finance & Bursar. “Other institutions may have significantly larger challenges now with this late announcement of a cut to base budgets.”

With campuses throughout north-central BC, the College of New Caledonia is the region’s only comprehensive post-secondary education provider and the first choice for university transfer arts & science, business, social & health sciences, technologies, trades and adult upgrading.

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Posted on Thursday, March 20, 2008 03:02 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Palopu on March 20 2008 4:06 PM

When will we stop giving these people salary increases. Are we all nuts. You cant give people increases every year for doing the same amount of work, as you get no value for your dollar.

Its time to stop salary increases and to begin cutting costs.

When it comes to labour relations, big business, and big Government, this Province sucks.

Posted by: sum42guy2k on March 20 2008 4:23 PM

dont increase salaries, decrease them to stop the cuts!! cant you see the connection?? salaries go up therefore more cuts have to happen and tution goes up! Are we all idiots? no, just those in administration that keep raising thier own pay, and cutting the programs that they decide will fund thier salary!
Sad...

Posted by: REALIST on March 20 2008 4:32 PM

The money exists to pay everyone but we must stop the government from giving it away to banks and other corporations. Our tax monies are going to make the richer richer and the poorer poorer. Yes, we do need to wake up and stop this constant theft of our tax dollars.

Posted by: Runner46 on March 20 2008 5:21 PM

My take is that it used to be that in the old world you had a teacher, desks, tables and a projector and projector screen to pass on information.

Today, I think we need the above plus a COW(computor on wheels). More fixed costs. That would be about it for Univeristy transfer courses....oh don`t forget the pens, pencils and paper.

Now for trades, it would cost a bit more per student in fixed costs. What equipment, I don`t know, but more than pencil and paper. I think this is where CNC is being bit in the butt.
No???

Posted by: Harbinger on March 20 2008 6:48 PM

My guess is that they are going to find out what they don't need. In short order. And then conduct themselves accordingly.Why not? Taxpayers do it all the time.All they really need is an easy button from Staples. Works fer me.

Posted by: detoe43 on March 20 2008 8:01 PM

Seems to me CNC has missed 2 great opportunities. With the layoffs & closures in the forest industry & general downturn
in the economy the natural thing people do is turn to education. What does CNC do?
Cut programs. Maybe they should have aggressively pursued funding & ways to attract students. Instead they hire administrators.
The other opportunity is that there is still a need for skilled labour out there.
CNC has the facilities to make it a major player in the trades training world, but...
Mr. Bowman & Co. would be turfed out on their collective ears if this was any other field. Are they accountable to anyone?

Posted by: caranmacil on March 20 2008 10:18 PM

I used to teach at CNC. They have some serious problems. Some of the programs suffer due to poor hiring practices. The administration puts a lot of faith in 'non academic skills' and also fails to attract people with real world AND teaching experience. As well, programs (such as the foresat technologist) fail miserably to attract students in an active manner. 10 years ago there were 3 to 5 timesa as many applicants to the forestry program than there were seats. Now they have as few as 25 percent of the seats filled. Enrollment in forestry at UNBC has not suffered this way.
I agree with the above posts regarding how the college spends its money. As an instructor there i will be the first to admit that i was overpaid. Period.

Posted by: Runner46 on March 20 2008 11:15 PM

Now that puts the cat is among the pigeons, but that is not the story....metinks

Does not the problem really come with the students voting with their feet?

Posted by: tinyapplecork on March 21 2008 1:00 AM

"Does not the problem really come with the students voting with their feet?"

How? Students have no say in how programs are run or whom their instructors are. The only "voting" that is done by students is the demand for programs that are offered by securing a seat every semester.

I'd like to know who CNC Board is accountable to as well. It's amazing how many Boards in this province can run amok with taxpayer dollars and tuition fees. Insulting really. Greed is out of control in all corners of government lately.

Posted by: lunarbase on March 21 2008 6:11 AM

They way how students vote with their feet is to attend a different College, instead of the one locally.

Posted by: owl on March 21 2008 9:30 AM

Let me see. I have a tough decision.

1. Live with my parents for another two years, free room and board, maybe even the use of the family car(s).

2. Move to Kelowna, eight months of room and Board at roughly $7,000 to $10,000 total plus moving expenses.

Luckily I am interested in taking programs in the business and finance area and I realize the decsion is really a no brainer for me.

Due to the new demand in the labour market, I have an entrance level job waiting for me at $10/hour with some internal training and quick movement in the food services sector whjich might lead me into some low level management within the first year and I can learn business and finance first hand and make $15/hour within a year.

So, no move to Kelowna because it is cost prohibitive. No seat at the college because they do not have the program I want.

So, that has turned out to be somewhat revenue neutral to PG.

However, it could have turned ugly for PG. We could have had parents who could have given their child the $10,000 + the tuition, plus money for books, new computer, etc. etc. and send him/her off to Kelowna and send all that money out of this community and into Kelowana.

And this city is trying to diversify! .. LOL ....

By not providing service for our people, we are bleeding the place dry.

By not providing services for people from other communities who don't mind bleeding their places dry, we are missing an opportunity to strenghten our economic base.

By not competing with other communities for providing services we are out of the race and may finish last.

Remember, most of the money (in the 75% of total cost range) for post secondary spaces comes from provincial dollars, not local. So, the more we access that, the more we see of that provincial asset rather than it going to other communities. There is a total seat capacity in the province, no matter what we do here. More or less, what we will not provide here, others will provide in other communities.Our objective should be to get a higher percentage of those seats here, to pick up not only the education earmarked dollars and channel them through our community, but the living and other dollars which will stay here and will come here from outside the community from those who have to come here to take courses.

I wonder how many on the Board understand that.

Posted by: NMG on March 21 2008 10:46 AM

"Remember, most of the money (in the 75% of total cost range) for post secondary spaces comes from provincial dollars, not local. So, the more we access that, the more we see of that provincial asset rather than it going to other communities"

Yup. And in doing so, we establish a fairly predictable stream of money flowing into our community, along with all of the other benefits that go along with it. Attracting more students is good. They spend money, they need to work, they need places to live, they are smart, local businesses and industries could benefit from hiring smart people, etc.

Are CNC and UNBC working together to be strategic about advancing and expanding the educational services that they can offer to the city, region, province, country and beyond? Or, are they too concerned with building their own empires at the others (and ultimately their own) expense?

Posted by: acrider54 on March 22 2008 6:56 AM

What's new? Liberals need money for Olympics and their buddies.