Alamance Community College’s board of trustees voted 10-0 this week to approve a $5.9 million county budget request for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal year that begins July 1.
If approved by Alamance County’s commissioners, the proposed county budget would represent an 8.1 percent increase (or an additional $436,631) above the county’s funding levels for ACC for the current fiscal year that ends June 30.
By comparison, ACC officials had requested $6,261,962 in county funding for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Alamance County’s commissioners subsequently allocated $5,413,822 – approximately 13.5 percent ($848,140) less than the $6.3 million in county funding that ACC had requested – when the commissioners voted in June 2024 to adopt a county budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
ACC’s county budget request for the 2025-26 fiscal year includes $5.2 million for current expenses (i.e., day-to-day operations) and $626,000 for capital funding for routine building maintenance (see accompanying chart).
ACC trustee Pete Glidewell, who serves as chairman of the trustees’ budget and finance committee, presented the proposed county budget request for 2025-26 during the board’s latest meeting Monday night.
ACC’s costs for personnel, benefits, and building maintenance are projected to increase by 2.8 percent, based on a forecast for the southern U.S. by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, based on information that was provided for the trustees’ discussion.
State law requires counties to fund expenses for the maintenance and construction of community college facilities located within their jurisdictions.
For years, however, ACC’s trustees have designated a portion of county current expense funding to supplement the salary for the community college’s president.
While the State Board of Community Colleges sets the salaries for the presidents at each of the 58 N.C. community colleges, many community colleges provide a county-funded supplement for their presidents in order to attract and retain the best leaders, ACC president Dr. Ken Ingle told The Alamance News prior to the trustees’ meeting.
The state-funded portion of each president’s salary is based on the number of full-time-equivalent students enrolled at each community college.
ACC also uses part of its county current expense funding to cover the salaries and benefits for approximately two dozen full and part-time employees within the campus public safety department, ACC chief financial officer Elizabeth (“Libba”) Thomas told The Alamance News Monday night.
ACC’s overall costs for maintenance and janitorial services provided under a contract with Aramark will increase by about 3 percent, due to the opening of the Public Safety Training Center in Green Level later this spring, Glidewell told the trustees.
“We are living within our means right now,” Glidewell said. “The basic [reason] for the increase will be the Public Safety Training Center coming online.”
A portion of the $626,000 in additional county capital funding that ACC is seeking for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal year would be used for HVAC system maintenance, maintenance equipment, and two new vehicles, including a box truck to transport equipment and furnishings to the Public Safety Training Center.
Though it wasn’t included as part of ACC’s county budget request for 2024-25, Thomas also furnished the trustees with a list of $10.8 million in “top unfunded capital needs” (see accompanying chart).
However, ACC will continue to seek out grant funding and other potential sources of state and federal revenue to offset those costs, according to the community college’s CFO.
Voting to approve ACC’s county budget request for the upcoming fiscal year were: trustee chairman Julie Scott Emmons; vice chairman Ken Walker; and trustees Jim Butler; Steve Carter; Dr. Roslyn Crisp; Tony Foriest; Glidewell; Bill Gomory; Sylvia Munoz; and Blake Williams.
ACC’s newest trustee, Tammy Karnes, recently appointed by Alamance County’s commissioners to complete the remaining term of former trustee Mark Gordon, was absent Monday night due to illness, Ingle told the board.
The trustee seat previously held by Dr. Charles K. Scott, who resigned in November 2024, has not yet been filled by the General Assembly.
The proposed county budget request for ACC will be forwarded to Alamance County government officials by the end of this month, Thomas told the newspaper, adding that there could be adjustments before it’s finalized.
[Story continues below chart of history of ACC funding requests.]
In other business, Thomas told the trustees that ACC had received a clean audit – with no findings, material weaknesses, or deficiencies – for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2024, according to a report on the community college’s comprehensive financial statements prepared by Lee Grissom of the Preston Douglas & Associates accounting firm in Lumberton.
