Big Bend fares better under budget

MOSES LAKE - Big Bend Community College would receive cuts of $540,000 over two years under a budget proposal released Tuesday by the state House of Representatives.

Originally, the school administration believed they would lose approximately $1.2 million under the budget proposed by Governor Chris Gregoire, said Gail Hamburg, Big Bend's vice president for financial and administrative services.

The college will have to make some cuts, including budgets for supplies, said Hamburg. Other expenses like the college's travel budget have already been minimized and won't be increased, she said.

Other cuts will come by reducing staff through attrition. For example, an employee at the college's activity center took a position in the financial aid office; the college won't be hiring anyone to fill the old position, she said.

Under the governor's proposed budget, the college likely would have raised fees, she said, citing increased fees for placement tests as an example. Under the House budget, the college won't have to raise the fees, she said.

"Our students are already being hit with a 12 percent increase in tuition and it would be nice not to have increases in fees," she said.

"We're certainly encouraged by the budget proposal, primarily because it's substantially less than what we were led to anticipate from the governor's cut," said Big Bend President Bill Bonaudi. "We're hopeful that the Senate will respond in a similar fashion with an even lower budget reduction so we can offer full programs for our students in the fall."

Big Bend has lost $3.7 million in state funding since 2009.

"Any cuts, after all the cuts we've taken, will still be a challenge, but there's some substantial relief here," he said.