N.C. community colleges face $69M shortfall after lawmakers fail to update state budget (2024)

Even from her office at Forsyth Technical Community College, President Janet Spriggs remains a teacher at heart.

So when questions about the effects of a rather dubious budget decision made — or not made — by the legislature cropped up, Spriggs first broke down the mechanism by which the state’s 58 community colleges are funded.

Before you can address a problem, you have to understand it first.

The community college system has its budget set in two-year increments, she said, and each school has its money tied to the previous year’s enrollment.

If Forsyth Tech’s enrollment increases by, say, 9%, the Legislature traditionally would adjust the budget to match growth.

But this year, lawmakers mired in a false debate over whether (or how much) to increase pay for teachers left town without updating the second year of the two-year budget cycle.

And community colleges were left holding the bag — even though the state has a $1.4 billion budget surplus.

“I don’t think it was intentional,” Spriggs said. “I don’t think they left Raleigh knowing this would happen.”

An easy fix

“This,” of course, leaves presidents such as Spriggs scrambling to stretch their budgets under the uncertainty of when (or if) the biennial budgets are adjusted.

For Forsyth Tech, which is looking at a record enrollment increase this year, that could mean cutting course offerings and reduction in support services.

Per Public Ed Works, an organization that advocates for public education in North Carolina, the State Board of Community Colleges in the annual budget dance asked the Legislature in February for $69 million to account for 4.6% growth in 2023-24.

So far, so good.

But when lawmakers were in Raleigh earlier this summer, the House and Senate could not come to an agreement over pay increases and left town without making adjustments.

And as Spriggs noted, it’s likely that few, if any, realized that what some view as a technicality would actually hurt the schools and their 393,000 students by creating budget deficits.

“The deficit is so much more than we’ve ever encountered,” community college system president Jeff Cox told state board members earlier this month.

On paper — and in real life, too — $69 million is a lot of money.

But the state has a $31 billion annual budget and $1.4 billion squirreled away. It’s an enviable position, and dipping into the surplus for $69 million amounts to an impulse purchase. An easy fix.

In practical terms, college leaders don’t know yet exactly how they’ll be affected.

“For the fall semester, we’re doing everything we can not to have it impact students,” Spriggs said.

Effects of the shortfall

Forsyth Tech has around 9,000 students enrolled for classes that began this month, Spriggs said, and school leaders “expect that to be 9,200-9,300” by the second eight-week term that begins in October.

Over the course of a calendar year, Forsyth Tech serves more than 24,000 students — 11,000 in curriculum classes working toward an associate’s degree and the rest taking continuing education courses or job skills training.

So the $3.2 million budget shortfall the school already knows about is being felt. And it could get worse when the calendar rolls over into January.

The college is raising the cap on class sizes and is asking instructors to teach more students, Spriggs said. “We haven’t cut classes (for fall), but it will catch up to me in spring.”

That means students who often must schedule around work and family obligations could miss out on making progress toward their degrees if required classes usually offered at different times and on different days have to be pared back.

“We’re going to be short, and we will have to look at cutting sections of some classes that students need,” Spriggs said. “And we won’t be able to do some of the support programs, either. We’ll have to look at cutting back on the tutoring that’s available.”

That’s regrettable. Even if it was unintentional.

Community colleges are crucial rungs on the economic ladder. The schools offer opportunity at affordable prices — a true meritocracy.

The good news here is that the Legislature never formally adjourned, which means that leaders can come back anytime they wish.

But don’t hold your breath. Not when election season is in full swing.

“The General Assembly has been very good to us,” said Spriggs, ever the pragmatist. “I just think that maybe the impact wasn’t realized.”