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Posted by: Jon_Cada on 03/17/2009 01:31 PM
Updated by: Jon_Cada on 03/18/2009 08:47 PM
Expires: 01/01/2014 12:00 AM

Budget to be announced tonight – deficit plans will headline meeting

Next year the Campus Shop could be run through a third-party company.

President Barbara Taylor is set to announce the budget report for the 2009/2010 fiscal year.

By Jon Cada
theclaw.ca

College President Barbara Taylor will formally announce the school’s budget deficit tonight at the Canadore Board of Governors meeting.

Taylor will make a series of recommendations in the budget report to the board highlighting key areas to reduce operating costs. Tactics include contracting work to third-party businesses for custodial services and the handling of day-to-day business at the Campus Shop.

Taylor said she expects a roughly $3-million operating deficit for the 2009/2010 school year. Taylor said she is going forward with a plan that will drop the deficit to $1-million by 2010/2011 and eventually result in a fully balanced budget by 2011/2012.

One option for Taylor and her budget staff was offering early-leave incentive packages to employees who qualify and would accept them. However, it is a confidential process and Taylor offered no detailon the subject other than saying that announcements would not be made until after the March 13 deadline.

Taylor said she is confident the deficit will eventually be balanced as enrolment increases.

“Generally, when the economy takes a downturn college enrolment goes up. We’re seeing that first-year enrollment will be as strong this year as last year across the college as a whole. With last year’s enrolment group, those students have moved on to second year, so we should see an increase there, which leads to more tuition revenue and operating grant revenue,” Taylor explained.

The provincial government funds the Second Career program, a re-training program for displaced workers. Canadore has seen far more uptake in this area than anticipated and see that trend as certainly good news for the college, Taylor added.

Plans for construction on several new buildings are still going on, according to Taylor, and she says she is confident that all of the projects will proceed despite tough economic times.

“The Learning Library campaign continues to go really well; we should be putting shovels in the ground for that as early as June. The student (centre) expansion is moving ahead; both Nipissing University's and Candore's) boards have signed off on that and it should be starting to happen this summer.

“We’re continuing to campaign and advocate hard for the funding for the Centre For All Media and we’re moving ahead with the development of the detailed plans of that.”

Fifteen of the 24 colleges in Ontario are expected to have deficits for the 2009/2010 school year. While Taylor admitted her school has a deficit but the best way to get through it is to keep focusing on what the college is doing for its students.