<a href="mailto:draymo@pressrepublican.com">By DENISE RAYMO</a>
MALONE — Budget discussions where “everything is on the table” could force North Country Community College to end its men’s and women’s hockey programs.
Interim College President Fred Smith gave Franklin County legislators an overview of the school’s financial picture Thursday, which will likely include a tuition hike.
“It’s safe to say there is not a single community college within the state university system that won’t be asking for a tuition increase,” Smith said, adding that student fees will also likely go up.
Legislator Paul Maroun (R-Tupper Lake) asked if sports programs had been targeted as a place to find savings.
“Everything is on the table,” Smith said, explaining that a bulk of the cost is covered through a separate corporation called the North Country Association, which also finances the food-service program and dormitories for college.
He said a majority of the funding for athletics comes from the association, but the transportation costs are part of the college’s budget.
And because the Board of Trustees will be looking at every line item for cost savings, “there is a potential for the demise of hockey,” Smith said.
The expense in footing the program has caused fewer schools to retain hockey teams, he said, and those that still have them are farther away, which increases the travel expense.
“You will very likely see the elimination of hockey, both the men’s and women’s,” he said.
Of the students attending North Country, 14 percent play sports.
Many of them are athletes who could not get in to the four-year school of choice and are attending NCCC with the plan to transfer to a four-year school or one with a Division I athletic program after earning a degree at one of the school’s three campuses, he said.
Smith said the first meeting to begin formulating the college’s 2009-10 budget is today.
He told the legislators that enrollment figures are about the same as they were at this time last year.
Smith also said that the second search for a college president “is in the discussion stage.”
The NCCC Board of Trustees rejected all four of the candidates interviewed for the position. A firm has been hired to gather names of interested parties.
Smith will stay on as interim president until someone is hired. He is a former academic dean at Clinton Community College.
E-mail Denise A. Raymo at:
draymo@pressrepublican.com
