FDTC commission approves further budget cuts

FLORENCE — Members of the Florence-Darlington County Commission for Technical Education voted to approve amendments to the college’s 2008-09 budget after recent state budget cuts, bringing the college’s cumulative budget cut to $2.35 million.

During the commission’s meeting held Wednesday at the Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing and Technology, Tim O’Dell, vice president of business affairs, said the General Assembly’s approval of $488 million in budget cuts during October resulted in a 11.5 percent cut for the college.

Higher education institutions were among those who were hit the hardest when it came to the budget cuts. At that time, state funds to post-secondary institutions were estimated to be cut 14 to 15 percent.

O’Dell said he was notified Monday of another 1.89 percent in state budget cuts coming soon.

The commission already had to amend the college’s budget in September to absorb budget cuts totaling $805,668.

Included in those amendments was a 5.2 percent in “across the board divisional cuts.”

FDTC President Dr. Charles Gould said the college was trying to do everything possible to preserve the number in instructional faculty and the number of students.

“It’s just very tough,” Gould said. “One of the major issues for us is that our tuition is very low to begin with, so we don’t have a lot of expendable cash.”

Florence-Darlington Tech was the only college in the state that didn’t increase tuition for the fall term and the previous academic year, according to college officials in September.

Gould said the college will not fill vacant positions, will cut expenses such as travel and reduce library acquisitions, among other line items in order to handle the cuts.

“We’re trying to keep the impact of students to a minimum,” he said. “That was our goal. To not reduce services to students and not to reduce our permanent personnel.”

In other business, the commission approved a new certificate program for office support specialists.

Dr. Charles Muse, vice president for academic affairs, said the entry level program will require 24 hours of coursework or two semesters.

An office support specialist could potentially earn from $10 to $15 an hour.

No additional staff is required to run the program, which will begin next semester.

About 21 positions are said to be available during the next three years.