Lane Community College’s Board of Education approved a mitigation plan Wednesday to cope with projected financial deficits. It includes potential cuts of up to $4.4 million. The Board also voted to raise tuition by $2 per credit hour.
The plan includes potential reductions of staff and programs. The board will get more specifics on those cuts at its next meeting.
Board member Steve Mital said approving this plan is the responsible thing to do to avoid more difficult cuts in the future.
“Honestly, the humane thing to do is to move forward with this this evening,” he said. “To do anything else, feels to me like an abdication of a tough responsibility that we’ve taken on voluntarily.”
The vote was 4 to 3. Board chair Austin Fölnagy, Vice-chair Jerry Rust, and Zach Mulholland voted against it, expressing concern about impacts to students and staff.
The Board also approved a 1.2 percent increase to student tuition.
That translates to a $2 per credit increase, which means that tuition goes up to $151 per credit hour.
That will generate an estimated additional $400,000 for the college. The amount of increase was decided with participation from students.
Board member Julie Weismann said she was glad they weren’t raising it more.
“This is not the time for us to be covering institutional expenses on students’ backs,” she said. “It should be, let’s get our enrollments up, let’s get more students involved in LCC. Let’s improve our community in that way.”
The college is preparing for its 2027 budget process starting next month.
The board ratified a new contract with its classified employees at its Wednesday meeting. A tentative agreement on a faculty contract was reached last week.
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