Thursday night the board of trustees is scheduled to approve a budget for the fiscal year beginning July first.
Chief Financial Officer Steve Frommelt says state funding will be lower by seven per cent because enrollment dropped about 10 per cent during the past year. And the board already decided to leave property taxes and tuition at their current levels.
"We'll be operating out of a deficit in the numbers, but part of the HEERF money (Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund) that was distributed by the federal government will be used to offset that loss for fiscal '22. The college is expecting an institutional component of four million dollars."
In addition to the deficit, the federal money will also help pay for some ongoing expenses caused by the pandemic.
State funding for Black Hawk College in the coming year will be 4.8 million dollars, around 15 per cent of its annual budget, and down about 400,000 dollars ( 7 % ) from a year ago because of lower enrollment.
Back in November, trustees approved no change in the college district's tax levy, and in the spring decided to keep tuition at the current level for the fifth year in a row.
