‘Reasonable’ budget OK’d for FDTC
By Bobby Bryant, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
A “reasonable” budget of $36 million for Florence-Darlington Technical College won quick approval last week from the school’s governing board.
The Florence-Darlington County Commission for Technical Education on June 25 OK’d the budget for fiscal 2019-20 – a budget smaller than last year’s in keeping with a smaller enrollment at the school, commission members said.
The school has about 4,200 students, a lower number than the school had projected, officials said. Technical-college enrollment is down across the nation, school officials said.
FDTC’s new budget includes a 2 percent pay raise – mandated by the state — for employees, officials said. “We really had a pretty good funding year this year in the Legislature,” said Edward Bethea, FDTC’s interim president.
In late April, the school’s commission approved a 3.3 percent tuition increase for students.
That works out to about $6 more per credit hour. At the time, commission member Hood Temple noted that the school’s operating budget just a few years ago was $43 million, and now the school was aiming for $36 million – a $7 million belt-tightening in a fairly short time.
“That’s a $7 million correction in our budget, which I think is impressive,” Temple said in April.
In other business last week, the commission chose new officers.
The new chairman is Dr. Leroy Robinson, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Hartsville, and the new vice chairman is Dr. Joe Griffin, a Florence dentist. Ershela Sims, an official at the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics in Hartsville, is treasurer.
