By Joe Ragusa
NORMAL – Heartland Community College has passed a tentative budget for the next fiscal year.
The budget brings in $32.8 million in revenue and spends about $32.6 million, leaving a surplus of about $150,000.
Heartland Community College President Rob Widmer said uncertainty with state funding made the budget crafting process very difficult.
“I certainly hope that by September we know where we stand specifically on state funding and whether we’ll stay at the level we’re anticipating that we stay at now,” Widmer said.
The board approved a one percent increase for 216 full-time classified, professional-technical and administrative employees for next year.
“We would like to be giving more of an increase,” Widmer said. “We actually feel that this is a very limited increase, the best that we could do with the budget constraints that we have.”
Widmer waived his contractual three percent pay bump, so his salary will remain the same along with members of the Cabinet. The board also approved an eight percent increase to what the college pays Connect Transit for providing free bus service for Heartland students.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at joe.ragusa@cumulus.com.
