Commission approves $40 million budget for FDTC
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
Employees of Florence-Darlington Technical College could get a raise come January. During a meeting of the Florence Darlington County Commission for Technical Education at SiMT, June 20, commissioners approved the 2017-2018 budget with an embedded two percent raise for all employees.
The 2017-2018 budget is more than $40 million, with a large percentage of that coming from curriculum tuition and fees; the greatest expense for the college comes from curriculum instructional expenses.
Douglas Lange, Vice President of Financial Affairs, explained how the raise would work.
“We have a two percent raise embedded in this budget for half a year,” Lange said. “We will reevaluate this fall and see where we are numbers-wise. (There is) no guarantee. We’ll take it back down if we need to. We are doing the prudent thing.”
Commissioner Hood Temple questioned the decision to include the raise in the budget without coming before the commission for a vote of approval.
“Going forward, all due respect to the president, this is something to discuss, something to have extensive conversation about,” Temple said. “I would prefer it not be buried in the budget; I would prefer that there be some open discussion about it.”
Human Resources Executive Director Terry Dingle said that a past commission decided to have raises incorporated into the budget and not vote on them. Temple said that while he can appreciate that that was a decision made in the past, according to South Carolina law one board is not bound to the decision of another.
Lange said a decision will be made on the raise once numbers come in at the end of the calendar year.
“If we make our enrollment projections, revenue projections, etc. and things are how we expect them to be, we will leave the raise in,” Lange said. “If they aren’t we don’t give the raise.”
Commissioner Dr. Alvin Heatley said that a raise would be out of the question if enrollment and revenue numbers are down.
“If the plan doesn’t come together, we’re not going to have the money to do it anyway,” Heatley said.
Lange said that the college has kept a tight watch on their expenses, knowing that other institutions across the state are struggling.
“This budget represents Florence-Darlington Tech in much better shape than many of our sister institutions,” Lange said. “All of the pieces are working together to keep us going. SiMT, the bookstore; everything has to work together…Things are tough in the Tech system but we are not in that position. We have a couple of alternatives, some other revenue streams. We are being aggressive in our management; we are working hard to keep our costs down and delivering a quality product. We are fortunate, I guess, that it is paying off.”