North Idaho College has received a surplus of funds from the state to support enrollment growth.
The $1,795,000 in extra funds was given to be spent on one-time expenses associated with enrollment growth.
The decision on what items would be paid for was made by looking at one-time expenditures that were submitted for the original budget, but were rejected for funding.
A second list was made of one-time expenditures that had not previously been submitted to the budget. This list went through the President’s cabinet, where certain items were either approved or rejected.
The items from both lists make up the final surplus budget as follows:
$351,000 will go to Student Services for new software that will allow them to automate the admissions application process, increase retention efforts, as well as to support the student transfer process, and grade management.
$487,500 will go to administrative areas for employee management, training, and development. It will also go to replacing outdated technology, remodeling on campus, developing more parking lots on the old mill site, and to support Information Technology needs.
$66,000 for snow removal equipment for the Education Corridor.
$24,000 for Educational Corridor infrastructure.
$78,000 for relocating the Testing Center.
$83,000 for the purchase and demolition of Jeffries TV.
$200,800 for building access control systems and security cameras.
The remaining $504,700 will mainly be spent on the upgrade/replacement of equipment in the professional technical programs. Institutional
Effectiveness and elearning offices will also be expanded, and there will be faculty improvements made in several instructional areas.
NIC will also cover its contribution to the state contract of Blackboard out of this money, and expand the duel credit program.
In other news, NIC’s vice president of instruction, Jay Lee, is set to join a team representing Idaho at the Complete College America Academy.
Lee will join seven other key figures in Idaho education, including two members of the State Board of Education and state representative Mac Shirley, at the academy in Austin, Texas.
Complete College America is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2009 with the goal of increasing the number of Americans with a college degree or technical certificate.
Complete College America works solely through state policy.
NIC can expect to see several changes as a result, including an increased number of available duel-credit courses, curriculum re-writes, and attempts to better NIC’s many remedial courses—all in hopes of increasing graduation rates and retention.
According to the U.S. Department of Education study of two-year public colleges, NIC’s graduation rates are 23 percent, putting NIC between the leading rate of 37 percent held by the Eastern Idaho Technical College, and the College of Southern Idaho’s lagging rate of 18 percent.
