Today, the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Education met to go
over the budget requests by the Department of Public Instruction,
community colleges, and University of North Carolina. If you didn’t
know better, you would have thought that those who made presentations
before committee members were making their Christmas lists preparing to
talk to Santa Claus at the mall. With talks of themes around an
improved financial picture for the state, it was easy to make that
comparison.

Here are some other thoughts from the meeting:

  • University of North Carolina leaders, that means Erskine Bowles,
    are going to continue to push for enrollment growth funding to be
    included in the continuation budget instead of the expansion budget. If
    the money is placed in the continuation budget, it would not have to be
    approved each year by legislators. This money, recommended at just over
    $79 million for 2006-07, are funds given to universities based upon
    enrollment figures. It’s similar to enrollment growth funding for both
    the Department of Public Instruction and community colleges.
  • Community Colleges want more money for bonus leave days that they
    say they can’t afford to pay when an employee leaves either the system
    office or colleges, forcing positions to remain “vacant for months a
    time.” The system wants $24 million to create a reserve fund.
  • The community college budget request also focused on the cost remedial
    education has on the system. “Consistent with the national statistics,
    more and more high school students are graduating and matriculating to
    community colleges ill-prepared for the rigors of college-level work.
    As such, the NCCS is forced to provide remediation to approximately
    one-half of those students who advance directly from high school to
    community college.”

In all, what everything amounts to is big request items for community
colleges and UNC. UNC’s budget request is for $285 million in recurring
funds, while requesting $14 million in nonrecurring funds. Community
Colleges are asking for about $150 million in recurring funds, and
about $96 million in nonrecurring funds.