TCC’s board of trustees approved a $327 million budget with a 4-3 vote during its Aug. 18 meeting.
The new budget includes a 3 percent salary increase for all full-time employees, a raise to $12 for the minimum hourly salary rate and a $1-per-contact-hour faculty adjunct raise.
The new budget keeps tuition rates the same at $55 per credit hour for in-district students, $86 for non-district students and $205 for non-resident students.
Supplemental instruction, a program in which students teach other students, received an additional $1.4 million in funding. The money is being moved from the sticky space fund, which is used on student congregation areas.
The budget also keeps the tax rate unchanged instead of raising the tax to the effective rate, which would have given the district more money.
The additional money created would have come directly from taxpayers at an average of $8 per household.
Chancellor Erma Johnson Hadley presented the board with the choice between tax rates.
“I gave them options because a board member had suggested that we may want to consider going to the effective tax rate,” she said. “My initial recommendation to the board was to keep the tax rate exactly as it is.”
Board vice president Kristen Vandergriff said her decision to choose the budget keeping the same tax rate rested partly with the increase in property values throughout the county.
“At this time, I did not think it was necessary for us to go to the effective tax rate,” she said. “Because the property values have gone up, each property owner will have an increase on their taxes. The college projected revenue from that will be over $11 million based on the same tax rate.”
— Dylan Bradley
