By Susan Bryant

sbryant@tnonline.com

Lehigh Carbon Community College and Lehigh Career and Technical Institute budgets were the main topic of discussion at the March 15 Northwestern Lehigh School Board meeting.

Dr. Ann Bieber, president, and Stefanie Nester, vice president of finance and administrative services, with LCCC, were first to discuss the college stats and budget.

This past year, LCCC had 11,000 students in the credit and workforce training program, Bieber said.

She said some of the stimulus money they received, about $3 million covered unpaid balances of 2,400 students.

“We wanted to give students an opportunity who had balances to come back to the college, writing their prior balances clear,” Bieber stated. “We continue to look at our organizational structure after COVID to look at every position to determine should it be replaced or not, in an effort to ensure we have a balanced budget, one of the areas of focus is students.

“We saw after COVID, students required more assistance just to stay in school, so we hired coaches for both our faculty and our students. They proved really successful, and we have integrated them in all areas of the enrollment process.”

Bieber said recently they completed the facility master plan and, over the next five years, they are looking at a cost of about $15 million.

“Former state Sen. Pat Browne recently helped us with $2 million toward that, so we are slowly getting to do the renovations we need,” Bieber stated.

“But this fall we had about 200 students who were from Northwestern Lehigh, almost 90 of those students were dual enrollment and early college, and they registered for courses such as biology and anatomy, physiology and sociology.

“The most popular majors were the dual enrollment general studies and health sciences and business administration.

“Only 28 percent of the students were full time, and 72 percent were part time. That’s what we’re seeing across the campus, more growing population of part-time students because they work, but you know it’s been a great semester at LCCC, and we continue to tweak the programs and services to ensure our students’ success.”

Nester then began her budget slide presentation.

“As Dr. Bieber mentioned on our fact sheet, we do have over 200 students from Northwestern Lehigh,” Nester said. “On this slide, you can see our total budget for the upcoming year is just under $60 million in comparison to $58.7 million last year.

“We also have an increase in project funding of $1.5 million. We do have tuition increases.

“The pricing for our tuition and fees will go to $2,595 per semester that is up from $2,550 in 2022-23.

“Our Pell Grant is expected to be $7,395 next year, so there will be just a slight overage from what we charge them. “

Nester said for the appropriations they are anticipating the state contribution will remain the same at $14.5 billion for operations.

“Our debt service and capital remain about the same at $1.3 million,” she said.

“Our total sponsoring school districts will be just under $6.2 million.

“That is the same amount we requested from all 13 of our school districts for the last 10 years.

“Northwestern’s allocation will be $231,000. That is a slight decrease over what you paid to us last year, so that is how we build our budget. “

“We’re trying to remain conservative with how we are budgeting. We have been challenged with competition from area businesses that are hiring our students because they make $20 and $25 an hour working at the warehouses or at other employers.

She added the tuition and fees on a per credit basis will be $183 per credit, $3 higher than the 2022-23 year.

“We are about No. 12 out of the 14 community colleges in the affordability scale, so we like to stay as low as we can. “

Nester said for expenditures, their total salaries, wages and benefits represent 74 percent of their budget compared to 73 percent last year.

Northwestern Lehigh representative trustee with LCCC, Dr. Barbara Kistler, also addressed the board.

“My message for tonight is to assure you that you are getting your money’s worth at the community college,” Kistler stated. “I think for the last three years the college has operated beautiful through some pretty tough situations.

“We’re a PA Hunger-Free Campus, named by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, so now we have food distributions.

“We have all kinds of ways students are given every possibility of success, and we are very proud of that.”

Kistler then explained she taught at LCCC for 23 years.

“So this background knowledge that I carry around with me is being put to good use and I thank you for making me your representative, so I can continue to serve the college in this way. So thank you.”

Dr. Lisa Greenawalt, executive director, and Holly Keller, business administrator, were next to present LCTI’s budget.

Greenawalt began her slide presentation.

“We have a very long-standing strong relationship with your district and we’re very pleased to continue that and we value that greatly,” Greenawalt said.

She noted LCTI’s student enrollment is increasing, and the budget is based on something they refer to as the average daily membership, called ADM.

“As you can see on this slide for the districts listed, including your district, we use the ADM to calculate our budget, as well as property values within your district,” Greenawalt stated. “So, we look at it on a five-year historical average of ADM’s and that’s how we determine the proportional share of the budget.

“If you look at those numbers since the school year 2017-18 until this school year, we estimate the ADM for the year based on the first Monday in October, which is Oct. 3 of this year enrollment.

“As you can see that increased from 133 ADM’s up to 210 ADM’s currently or an increase of about 77 students, so that’s incredible for your district and I applaud you for continuing to support LCTI and your students and their desire to follow a career pathway.”

Greenawalt said for the 2023-24 budget calculations, Northwestern’s five-year average reflects the higher five-year average than it did previously.

“Tonight you were presented with a balanced budget that is coming in under the Act 1 index,” Greenawalt said.

“It does include the addition of one teaching position to support our population of students who are identified as English Language Learners, a new position in our budget.

“Currently LCTI serves 65 students two of whom are from your district, who are English Language Learners.

“The regulations from the Department of Education require we provide support and instruction to this group of students, so the new position will work with our teachers to work with that population of students.

“We anticipate that number will grow with LCTI and will likely grow for your district as well.

“I would appreciate your support to add this position as part of the budget approval.”

Greenawalt said LCTI serves the county in workforce development, and they have a very robust business and industry community that serves the community.

“We have a rigorous curriculum, we have strong connections with our business community, high expectations. just like other schools across Pennsylvania and even in the nation,” she said.

Later in the evening, the board approved the budgets for both LCCC and LCTI, as well as Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21’s budget presented at the board’s workshop meeting on March 1.