New students to pay for tuition increase next year

A 2016-17 budget plan for MHCC moved one step closer to approval Wednesday.

It includes another tuition increase for new students, but also $125 million in new capital facility funds – assuming next week’s bond measure wins voter support.

Members of the Mt. Hood Board of directors’ budget committee (made up of all seven members of the board) voted unanimously to adopt their own $357.8 million budget plan.

Final, complete board approval is expected to come on June 8.

The proposed budget responds to a continued decrease in student enrollment at Mt. Hood; it anticipates another 8 percent decrease next year. The decrease in the current year for full-time students is nearly 10 percent.

To help make up lost revenue, the budget calls for a $2 per-credit hour tuition increase for all new incoming students, effective for Summer Term. (Tuition rates will remain steady for all current MHCC students who complete their studies within four years.)

The budget plan looks for ways to improve enrollment: $195,000 will be spent on increased on marketing the college, especially reaching out to local high school students.

Another $165,000 will pay to add more employees at Mt. Hood’s advising office, which is “understaffed” according to a written budget statement by President Debbie Derr.

And $95,000 has been set aside to add a mechatronics program that “combines multidisciplinary engineering fields and applies those skills to the complex systems involved in the design and manufacture of products.” These include systems engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, telecommunications engineering, control engineering and computer engineering.

Also, $47,000 will go for new catalogue software to help students better learn about courses.

There weren’t any members of the public or greater MHCC community attending the meeting, which included an opportunity for public input.

Jennifer DeMent, Mt. Hood Community College budget officer, explained the budget plan to the board and others who attended.

Tambi Boyle, MHCC’s Full-time Faculty Association president, and Derr signed an agreement to extend the full-time instructors’ current collective bargaining agreement through the 2017-18 school year.

Classified workers are not so pleased with the budget process this spring.

Cory Huston, the Classified Employee Association president, voiced frustration about how his group wasn’t able to speak at last month’s board meeting.

“My staff were prepared to present and we were removed from the (initial) agenda that was changed during the pre-board meeting,” said Huston.

On Thursday, representatives for the classified group and the administration met to continue to discuss their stance.

Derr also told the board that Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Democrat from Portland, will be the main speaker at Mt. Hood’s commencement ceremony on June. 11.