State College of Florida fears looming budget cuts

Carol Probstfeld hasn’t been sleeping well.

The cause of the State College of Florida president’s insomnia? The proposed budget making its way through the state House of Representatives.

The House budget includes language taking aim at excess college reserve funds. The language would restore reserve balances at state colleges to the state-mandated 5 percent by reducing funding to the school by however much in excess of 5 percent the institution is.

Probstfeld said the bill would reduce funding for the 8,000-student college by $4.4 million.

“That’s what keeps me awake at night,” Probstfeld said Wednesday.

The nursing program at SCF would be the most likely target of any future budget cuts. Even though it is one of the college’s most popular programs, nursing relies on other more profitable classes to prop it up.

“The only place I can turn to cut in programmatic expenses are the (nursing) programs that are in the greatest demand in our community,” Probstfeld said. “I don’t want to have to make that decision, but that’s where we are.”

Probstfeld said SCF saves up for large projects and protects itself for unforeseen costs by not spending all of its state funding. Instead, the school keeps the money in an unrestricted fund, but the Board of Trustees encumbers the money toward specific nonrecurring expenses.

“We are being penalized for being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars. Every year we try to live within our means,” Probstfeld said. “We only have so much revenue we expect to generate, so we try to manage our expenses and every year we have a little bit left. We have been accumulating that because our regular annual appropriation isn’t going to pay for things like (capital projects).”

The Senate budget is proposing reducing funding to state colleges due to a 2013 law making remedial classes optional for high school graduates.

Probstfeld said the Senate’s version would reduce funding to SCF by $1.5 million, and would be recurring cuts, while the House budget is presented as a one-time cut.

Hillsborough Community College Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Administration Al Erdman said the Hillsborough school would also see a reduction in its funding for having a surplus in reserves if the House bill passes in its current form.

“We try, just like everyone, to have a little bit of extra money so that if something happens we have something to go to,” HCC Vice President for administration and Chief Financial Officer Al Erdman said.

Erdman said the across-the-board reduction of reserve funds to 5 percent is an overly simplistic approach.

“It’s easy. It’s easy to do, but not productive because it penalizes the people who are successful,” Erdman said.

Both Erdman and Probstfeld said their schools keep reserve funds in the unrestricted account until the end of each fiscal year, when the school transfers the money to the appropriate fund. This means the money is available for use in the event of an emergency, but has been earmarked for specific long-term non-recurring costs by the Board of Trustees.

At SCF, the money is being saved for several long-term projects, including IT upgrades, construction projects and disaster recovery.

Chairman of the Manatee County Delegation Rep. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, and Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, were not available to comment Wednesday afternoon.

This story was originally published April 12, 2017 at 6:28 PM with the headline "State College of Florida fears looming budget cuts."