Dalton State faces continued funding loss

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January 19, 2011

Dalton State faces continued funding loss

Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Wed Jan 19, 2011, 11:52 PM EST

Dalton State College officials should know more about how the school will be affected by a proposed 10 percent cut to the Board of Regents budget after today.

DSC President John Schwenn said he’ll spend the day at a quarterly president’s meeting with Board of Regents staff and other presidents in the University of System of Georgia.

“Our problem is we’ve increased by about a thousand students and so far have lost 16.5 percent in funding,” Schwenn said Wednesday. “We’re just down to nothing (else to cut).”

He added Dalton State is the fifth-lowest funded of 35 institutions in spending per student in the University System of Georgia. The college’s education general budget was $24 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30 and $26 million for the current fiscal year.

The percentage of funding for Dalton State that comes from the state, however, shrunk from $15.4 million in fiscal year 2009 to $14.3 million in fiscal year 2010 to $13.9 million — including federal stimulus funding — in the current year. Meanwhile, tuition costs have risen hundreds of dollars, and another tuition increase is likely this year.

Chancellor Erroll Davis Jr. told The Associated Press on Monday that the Regents would need to raise tuition by 30 percent to completely replace the state funds it would lose under Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposal to cut 10 percent. It’s likely, Davis said, that the cuts would be dealt with through a combination of cuts and a tuition increase.

Schwenn said Dalton State officials haven’t determined how cuts would be made locally. Lawmakers don’t make decisions about funding individual colleges, but instead provide funding to the Board of Regents and let the board decide how to divide that money among the individual institutions.

Many of those budget decisions will depend on whether the state Legislature approves Deal’s proposals. Last year, lawmakers considered several different ideas, including funding cuts that Dalton State officials said would have meant closing some programs, capping enrollment and laying off staff.

The final budget cuts, which were made after several rounds of student protests, were far less deep than expected.

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Dalton State faces continued funding loss

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