By Catherine M. Welch
Wilmington, NC – The North Carolina Community College system controls funds earmarked for community colleges.
In a process called "reversion" the system calls back a certain percentage to help it make up shortfalls.
This fiscal year, all 58 community colleges have been asked to return 1% of their budget, and now they're being asked to return another .5%.
Kennan Briggs is Vice President for Business and Finance for the North Carolina Community College System. He says the system is getting squeezed between mandatory waivers and rising tuition.
So every time the rates increase, we're writing off a significant number of those dollars as waivers. Then we get out of balance between budget and actual. And so this has been an increasing problem for us the last several years exacerbated by rather large tuition increases.
Briggs says the 1.5% returned this year will generate $9.9 million.
When the fiscal year ends in June, Cape Fear Community College will have returned $310,000, Brunswick Community College $79,000 and Robeson Community College nearly $195,000.