CORRECTION: Heartland Will Seek Student Center Funding

By Michele Steinbacher, The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill.

Jun. 21–The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill., story slugged PP-0621-Heartland-Will-Seek-Student-Center-Funding, moved by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News for June 21, did not clarify the operating budget for Heartland Community College.

The college’s board of trustees approved a tentative operating budget of nearly $20 million, which includes the operations and maintenance fund and the education fund.

Please kill the original version and use the corrected story below.

Heartland will seek student center funding

By Michele Steinbacher

The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill.

Jun. 21–NORMAL — Heartland Community College officials have put a $26.5 million student center on their wish list for state-funded projects, but it probably will be years before the state funds it.

It also named an athletic director to oversee the Heartland Hawks teams.

The Heartland board of trustees on Tuesday OK’d the fiscal year 2008 capital request from the state’s Resource Allocation and Management Program.

Under the state’s funding formula, Heartland would need to come up with about $6.6 million of the cost.

The 87,000-square-feet center would offer space for offices, classrooms, a fitness center, meeting rooms and a larger campus bookstore among other functions, said Rob Widmer, Heartland’s finance chief.

Filing the request is the first step for the state to even consider funding a community college’s capital project proposal, Widmer said.

But hope of getting the state money is a distant one, he added.

The state hasn’t funded any such requests from community colleges in two years, he said. In fact, the last capital project funded at an Illinois community college was Heartland’s $23.2 million Workforce Development Center.

With the resulting backlog in unfunded requests around the state, Widmer estimates such a student center wouldn’t even be considered for more than five years.

“So, we’d be the last in the pipeline to get the resources, when the money is flowing,” Widmer said.

The college may consider seeking alternative funding for the project, he said.

Also at the meeting, Heartland’s board approved a tentative version of a nearly $20 million budget for fiscal 2007, which includes the operations and maintenance fund and the education fund — which are the primary focus for the day-to-day operations of the campus, Widmer said.

The budget will be fine-tuned over the summer, Widmer said. In September, the administration will present a final budget for approval, he said.

With state funding continuing to decline, keeping a balanced budget has required Heartland to increase tuition, Widmer said. Last year, the state covered 15.2 percent of HCC’s budget, but Widmer expects only 14.9 percent for 2007.

The budget is conservative in that it assumes no enrollment growth, he said.

He noted that local property-tax growth is slowly improving, the college raised tuition $4 per credit hour, and the continuing education area is bringing in more money. All help to keep revenue slightly higher than expenditures for the planned budget, he said.

On the expenditure side, employee salaries and benefits continue to take the biggest chunk of funding — more than 70 percent of Heartland costs. Contractual services costs are rising, from 6.7 percent to 8.1 percent.

Following closed session, the board also approved a 3.75 percent salary increase for Heartland’s nonfaculty employees, and named its first-ever athletic director — Nate Metzger, said HCC spokeswoman Janet Hill-Getz.

Earlier this spring the board instituted a per-credit-hour student fee, allowing the college to expand its student activities program. Metzger will oversee athletics with teams carrying the name of Heartland Hawks.

A search continues for a director of student development.

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