Funding reduction could impact FSCC budget

The Fort Scott Community College Board of Trustees was put on alert that they may need to take another look at the budget in the future.

The college suffered a reduction in state funding, President Alysia Johnston told the trustees at Monday's monthly meeting.

Governor Sam Brownback's office announced a cut to higher education for 2016, Johnston said.

"The governor's office announced a two-percent cut to higher education for this fiscal year," Johnston told the Tribune. "We receive a portion of our state money in January. We do not know exactly what the amount will be. The Kansas Board of Regents will have to give us that information. You would think it would be easy to calculate, but it is a very convoluted formula. We are estimating between $70,000 to $80,000. Hopefully that is high."

"That's money we will send back to the state," Johnston told the trustees. "That's money we already received so that budget cut is effective for this fiscal year."

Future funding in question

Johnston said FSCC administration is concerned about the recent Kansas Supreme Court ruling for block funding.

"The supreme court ruling said that block funding for K-12th grade was (ruled unconstitutional)," Johnston said. "They will have to fund a formula, it didn't say what funding formula. If not, then K-12 schools in Kansas will close at the end of June."

The problem is there are not many funding sources to get the money for kindergarten through 12th grade education, Johnston said.

"There is a lot of restrictions," she said. "One of those is higher education. It makes us move forward very, very cautiously. The reasons we are holding off bringing tuition and fees to you. We want to match it with our budget. We want to be as frugal as possible. That's another reason we are holding off on the roof on Arnold Arena."

Johnston said she is personally concerned about the Senate Bill 155 funding.

"There is $20 million that the state has appropriated for SB155 across the community and technical colleges," Johnson said. "I think it would be an easy sweep to move that to the USD funding. We don't know if that is going to happen. But I do know that is (Gov. Sam) Brownback's baby. And he is very dogmatic. Now they are in a position where...it is tough to fund that. It's making us move cautiously as we move forward about some things."