The board of governors of Olds College passed the institution’s 2013-14 budget of $50,279,000 at its monthly meeting on May 23, giving the college a surplus of $893,000 for the upcoming year.
The board of governors of Olds College passed the institution’s 2013-14 budget of $50,279,000 at its monthly meeting on May 23, giving the college a surplus of $893,000 for the upcoming year.
The budget was a revised version of the 2013-14 budget that was passed last year by the board. The revision was necessary since the provincial government cut funding to the college by 7.3 per cent in March and the school had actually expected a two per cent increase in funding from the province.
The college was able to balance its budget by reducing 25 full-time equivalent staff positions—10 people will be let go and 15 vacant positions will not be filled, said Jason Dewling, the college’s vice-president of academic and research.
The school is also addressing the reduced revenue from the provincial government by cutting administrative expenses, focusing more resources on teaching and learning and committing to increasing revenue by two per cent, Dewling said.
College management have taken a three per cent rollback in salary and will see a freeze in performance-based pay for the next fiscal year.
The college will have roughly 200 more student spaces than last year, including 81 more spaces for apprentices and more than 100 spaces in the new brewery operations program, the tourism and hospitality program coming from Red Deer College and the first year of the bachelor of science program offered at Grant MacEwan University, among others. That amounts to a seven to 10 per cent increase in student spaces over last year.
The only program that was cut at the college was the office administration program, which was transferred to RDC.
As a result of the provincial government cuts, the college has identified several areas that it will specialize in, including the brewery operations program and the fashion institute, which will be located at Bow Valley College in Calgary.
"We’ve basically delineated or identified niche programming. I think you’re going to see that over a period of time, highly specialized programs that will be recognized nationally and internationally," Dewling said.
The college also intends to expand operating revenue by about $1 million through food and beverage revenue, tuition and leasing of college land and the school will increase its capital revenues by bringing in about $1 million more than last year to help support capital purchases. This will be done through increasing sponsorships with business, bringing in more student scholarship money and increased naming rights.
The cuts in provincial government funding also mean the college will continue to have outside agencies evaluating different parts of the school to continually find ways to improve.
In the past year-and-a-half, the college has had outside entities conduct 14 reviews of everything from the Community Learning Campus to the community engagement site to curriculum and the college’s research division. Dewling said the benefit to the college of those reviews is that an outside entity gives objective ways the college can improve its operations.
"The reviews are brilliant because (they allow) an external viewpoint of someone with a highly specialized skill set to be dedicated to analyzing our operations. It really allows us to get an expert’s opinion on how we do things. And then we can make changes … based in research," he said.
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