Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
GOGEBIC COMMUNITY College board members review the minutes from the last meeting before accepting them for the record, Tuesday in Ironwood. The members, starting from the flag and moving clockwise are John Lupino, Jim Lorenson, Linda Gustafson, Sue Murphy, Tim Kolesar, Erik Guenard, Ryon List, Don Brown and Bill Malloy.
By IAN MINIELLY
Ironwood - Gogebic Community College held its truth in taxation hearing and set its millage for the next year at 2.81290, to be levied against property in the college's district. According to the board, this millage rate remains unchanged and has stayed the same for an extended period of time.
The college budget, to include a review of the revenue and expenses to date, was also discussed and set for the next year. With an understanding the budget has some items that will require change as the state and federal budgets are finalized. Erik Guenard said the school budget for 2017-2018 is expected to cost $11,606,409, while revenue projections are at $11,659,325.
The 2016-17 school year finances are almost in the books. Guenard said once the summer school money is collected, the school will have secured 97-98 percent of the budgeted revenue for the year. Guenard highlighted the school managed to drop 2 percent from its expenses in the 2016-17 school year compared to the prior year, which put the school in the black, as opposed to $500,000 over budget like last year, which is a considerable change.
Guenard showed there are two auxiliary areas the school lost money this year. The school lost over $12,000 with the book store - although summer revenue and inventory has not been adjusted for yet, which will lower this number - and over $17,000 with residential housing. The board discussed reasons for the book store drop in revenue and intends to make adjustments in the future to reverse the losses.
The board decided to raise tuition rates 5 percent across the board for the upcoming school year in an effort to allow the school to remain competitive, while also providing high quality education said, Guenard. Credit costs per student will now be $115 per credit for in-district students, $164 per credit for Michigan residents living out of the district, $164 per credit in the Wisconsin reciprocity area, $194 per credit for out of state students and $260 per credit for international students.
Local resident students taking a full course load will see their tuition bill increase $75. The 5 percent bump in tuition is expected to generate an additional $157,973 of college funding.
The board agreed to write-off a number of accounts held by students deemed uncollectable, with a total value of $50,081. While the school does not expect to collect the owed money from the former students, should a student request a transcript or seek to enroll again, the school will not take any action until their debt is paid in full.
The final bit of news coming from the meeting is the potential hiring of a full-time English instructor, Jason Schrontz from North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Schrontz has four years as a teaching fellow at Northern Michigan University, one year as an online composition instructor at NMU, and five years as a teaching assistant at the University of Rhode Island.
