Officials Tackle AACC Budget on Tuesday

Anne Arundel Community College officials will begin parsing the details of its 2013-2014 school year budget at a work session on Tuesday morning. 

During last year's budget season, the college's Board of Trustees chose to raise its tuition rates to balance its budget and help compensate for a declining student population.

AACC President Dawn Lindsay said the school's headcount had decreased in recent years, and had fewer students taking full-time course loads this year—likely as a result of the economic downturn. As a result, the college stands to take in $300,000 less in revenue this year than projected.

Lindsay said they were analyzing what could be done to curb the trend and move forward.

At a meeting in September, Trustee Arthur Ebersberger said raising tuition wouldn't be a solution to budget issues if the existing students are going to take fewer classes.

Chairwoman Victoria Fretwell agreed, saying officials would eventually have to explain this decline to the Anne Arundel County Council and the state, which both fund parts of the college’s operations.

“We can’t keep driving it up and expect to see a net increase,” Fretwell said.

Last year's budget was $110,621,000, and included no salary raises for employees, continuing a trend that began in 2009.

The nonvoting session of the trustees meeting on the 2014 budget will be held from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday in room 100 of the Center for Applied Learning and Technology (CALT) on the Arnold campus.