Due to falling state funding and falling enrollment, some jobs will be cut at Black Hawk College. Thursday it announced 17 full-time jobs will be eliminated, including 15 at the campus in Moline.
College president Bettie Truitt says the list includes 8 full-time faculty, and 9 administrative staff positions. Some or all of these cuts would not be necessary if the governor and General Assembly had solved their long-running budget dispute.
"I was waiting to see if anything would come out of the lame duck session in Springfield in January. Unfortunately, there was no progress there. We held off as long as we could and then out of respect for our employee community, we wanted to let them know and wanted to let them know in a shortened time period."
She says saving money on personnel will allow Black Hawk to keep its tuition at an affordable level - it's now at 147 dollars per credit hour, and trustees are considering a 2 dollar increase for next fall.
Some of the jobs can be eliminated right away, while others - covered by union contracts or state laws about tenured faculty - will take several months.
And while enrollment nationwide at junior colleges has fallen 2.6 per cent, Black Hawk says spring enrollment dropped 8 per cent compared to a year ago.
