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MHCC hires budget consultant
The Advocate
The MHCC District board was presented a preview of coming budget scenarios Wednesday night by Heidi Franklin, a consultant hired by the college to review budget processes.
Franklin, a former instructor at Portland State University and former Portland Public Schools’ chief financial officer, has been hired to oversee finances, revenue, expenses and to bring “best practices” to the college, according to MHCC President John Sygielski.
“She has no really specific duties, only looking at ways to improve processes,” Sygielski said in an interview Wednesday prior to the board meeting. “Most of us are new to MHCC. We all needed some teaching, and to be educated by Heidi.”
Franklin proceeded to educate the audience and board on MHCC’s coming practices for budget success, and gave an overview of general fund revenues. Franklin said other pieces of the budget puzzle would be spoken about in future meetings.
“Over only the last two bienniums, our state support has declined greatly,” said Franklin.
“We’ve seen a decrease from $500 million last biennium down to $450 million statewide. MHCC is roughly 9.4 percent of the budget, so this represents a sizable loss.”
Franklin said there has been speculation that enrollment increases would represent revenue increases.
“The answer is ‘maybe’,” Franklin said. “Because the state controls the size of the pie, it could happen. If you grow your number of students, but the rest of the colleges do as well, it’s likely your percent of the pie stays the same. The pie isn’t large enough to give everyone what they want.”
Franklin proposed a change in MHCC’s budget proposal tactics.
“Historically, MHCC’s president proposes a budget in April, the board would talk about it, then it would be voted on and adopted in June,” Franklin said. “We’re proposing that we stage the process. On April 1, Dr. Ski will outline the budget, and we will consider what tradeoffs we will have to balance a budget.”
State Sen. Rod Monroe, who is also a board member, asked the board when reviewing its next budget to not hope for more state support than the college received this year.
“We (Oregon) are in a $2.5 billion hole right now,” Monroe said. “And this year, we don’t have any ‘Obama money’ to help us out. I would ask the board not to project our college getting more than we got this year. In fact, it may be less. So be cautious.”
Sygielski said there was no time frame for Franklin to continue in her position, but that it will “probably be another two months.”
She is being paid $100 per hour for her services, and comes in “mostlyTuesdays and Thursdays.”
The district board will meet again April 1 to further discuss the 2010-2011 budget.
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