(Mouse click on image to enlarge it.)
This morning’s Coeur d’Alene Press skewspaper had an article by Maureen Dolan headlined The cost of declining enrollment.
According to the article, “NIC President Joe Dunlap and Athletics Director Al Williams pointed to the enrollment drop [at NIC] when they recently recommended that the college switch from a national athletics conference to a less costly regional community college sports association. The trustees will meet Thursday to decide whether to follow that recommendation, a move expected to chop an estimated $600,000 per year from the college budget.”
OpenCdA doesn’t prefer one athletic conference over another, but since the tap dancing duo of Dunlap & Williams has focused on the savings that would result from moving from the national conference to the regional one, we would suggest they and the Board of Trustees take a look at our OpenCdA post on June 23, 2011. It was titled simply $6,720,029.87.
As noted in our 2011 post, $6,720,029.87 was the amount of prepaid “rent” money NIC failed to even try to recover from the NIC Foundation after NIC had become the owner of the property. The detailed explanation of why NIC should have sought that refund is in the 2011 post. The quick-and-dirty version is that when NIC paid off its “rent” early, it accepted the deed and became the owner of the property. So in effect and in fact, NIC continued to pay “rent” to the NIC Foundation on land NIC already owned.
Recovering that “rent” paid after NIC took ownership, $6,720,029.87 paid as “rent” on land it already owned, might help resolve the athletic conference issue.
Bill, that is an interesting connection of the ‘dots’.
Oh well, what the heck, it is play money anyway; its just tax dollars. One might wonder why the decline in students was not brought up when the NIC board was aggressively seeking to go on the hook for a new basketball/event center. One might also wonder what is sacred about the NIC wrestling team? One might want to see a report detailing the cost of the wrestling program, including its trips around the country to wrestle ‘who knows who’, versus the income that the wrestling program brings into the college. Having gone to a few NIC wrestling matches over the years, I do not recall there being over a 100 spectators at any of the ‘home’ wrestling matches that I attended…and they were usually the ‘big’ matches.
Comment by up river — March 10, 2014 @ 5:49 pm
And I hear that there are some big questions about Booster Club money management over the past number of years too, Bill. If the conferences are downgraded, the Booster Club has to go away…I guess they don’t allow it. The Booster club president is apparently the same Al Williams as is the NIC Athletic Director…I find that odd…but the club has some serious financial accounting issues. And there is rumor (or more than that) that Al applied to be the head of the conference to which he now wants NIC to be a member. He didn’t get the job,I’m told.
Comment by mary — March 10, 2014 @ 6:42 pm
up river,
There were other dots in the story.
NIC bought (“rent” and “lease” were legal fictions) the 17 acres that was supposed to become the Education Corridor. It’s currently the Education Traffic Circle and Parking Lot. The skewspaper article said that according to NIC Propagandist in Charge Mark Browning, “Browning said the college is losing students because they are unable to meet the high demand for spots in technical programs like welding and machining. The college doesn’t have the space to accommodate many students and they are placed on wait lists.”
Yes, the College has the space, but its administration doesn’t have the will or courage to stand up to elitist/effetist faculty members who are ashamed to acknowledge they are teaching at a (gasp!) community college. Oh, how they wish they were somewhere else — right up until they cash their paychecks. (OpenCdA wishes they were somewhere else, too. The students would be much better off without them.) As if there is something professionally inferior about teaching students vocational skills that will help those students earn an honest living. NIC has the space on the Education Corridor to make NIC a superior community college. Build vocational training facilities on that space.
Comment by Bill — March 10, 2014 @ 6:43 pm
Mary,
Really? That’s interesting. Because in 2003, one Alvin Williams was singing the praises of the national conference NIC is presently in. Here’s a link to his February 20, 2003, letter to NIC President Michael Burke.
Comment by Bill — March 10, 2014 @ 6:51 pm
The past year URD’s received $900+ instead of being distributed to NIC, the previous year was just at a million.
Everyone should request our legislature to remove the colleges from URD’ distribution just like they made the changes to the schools.(only need to add in the legislative change) ANE COMMUNITY COLLEGES.
The large increase in enrollment has only been in the past 5 years, so if it is back where it was before the growth then I don’t understand. They could afford the sports team before, why not now. Or are there other stories to be told?
Comment by Sharon Culbreth — March 10, 2014 @ 7:17 pm
Sharon Culbreth,
Thanks for registering and commenting.
Comment by Bill — March 10, 2014 @ 7:20 pm
It’s really saddening how short the “corporate memory” is these days. A mere 5 years and they’ve already forgotten where they spent all those millions. Now I’ll guess it will become an “emergency” and they will need even more than the shortfall to recover.
Comment by Old Dog — March 11, 2014 @ 9:46 am