Statement of the Community College of Allegheny County

Presented by:
Nancilee Burzachechi
Executive Director of External Affairs

Before the Senate Education Committee
October 5, 2004
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee on behalf of the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC).  I’d like to take a few moments to highlight the challenges that currently face CCAC as we attempt to fulfill our mission to train the region’s workforce and to provide quality affordable education that is accessible to the residents of the Commonwealth. 

My name is Nancilee Burzachechi and I am the Executive Director of External Affairs at CCAC.  I’ve been employed by CCAC for 3 years but I have been in the higher education field for the past 12 years.  As a life-long resident of the commonwealth and a proponent of access to quality higher education, I welcome this opportunity.

Institutions of higher education, by their very nature, create an impact which ripples through the entire economy.  The economic health of a region is inextricably tied to its centers of higher education.  Our region’s ability to attract investment by corporations and industry from outside the state and the nation specifically hinges upon our ability to create and deliver an educated workforce. 

Approximately 94% of CCAC students live and work in the southwestern Pennsylvania region and remain here following graduation from our degree and certificate programs.  The college is expected to continue to grow and to provide trained workers for a changing economy.  The role of community colleges has expanded, especially in workforce training of new and incumbent workers and in providing support for pre-school to 12th grades.  Approximately 38% of our students require developmental courses and we are, de facto, the educational safety net for "no child left behind."  CCAC has attempted to meet these needs by expanding Child Development Centers and the Middle College program, but these programs are unfunded.    

As the 8^th largest provider of allied health workers in the nation and the largest provider in the Commonwealth, CCAC has trained a large portion of the region’s health care workforce.  However, our aging facilities are not equipped to handle our current demands, let alone the increased role that we have been asked to play.  The increased demand for trained health care workers has created the need for new lab facilities and functional space in which to conduct this training. 

Capital needs also include acquiring facilities for training highly skilled craft workers to meet the standards of other states----our concern here is that the skilled jobs (and companies who need such workers) will be lost to states who appear to be more serious about workforce training. 

CCAC has over the past 14 months, under the direction of our President, Dr. Stewart Sutin, aggressively pursued a strict course to reduce annual operating expenses at a rate of $3.2 million per year.  These measures include optimizing the use of faculty and facilities as well as faculty and staff reductions.  Despite these efforts, escalating costs have forced an increase of 8% in tuition and fees.  Estimated projections for the next several years indicate additional increases will be necessary.

For instance:

• Payment of debt service out of operating revenue creates a serious problem for CCAC and results in an annual expense of $5.5 million. 
• The original expectation was that the state would finance 50% of the debt service on capital and the county would finance 50%.  CCAC has received no funds for capital since the new form of county government was instituted.  Debt service costs the college $1.5 million annually. 
• Additional annual need for capital (resurfacing parking spaces, roofs, electrical, IT maintenance and infrastructure) of approximately $4 million per year over the next several years is expected.
• Capital needs for science and technology center and a presence in the airport corridor total $32 million.
• Current Funding: 
• CCAC has experienced a $1.8 million shortfall in the ’03-’04 distribution.
• In ’03-’04, CCAC spent $77 million to support 15,000 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) students---a cost of $5,133 per FTE
• We expect increases in ’04-’05 enrollment to 16,000 FTEs—if the same cost per student of $5133 is used, it raised CCAC’s cost to provide the same level of service is $82 million, an increase of $5 million.
• The state audit situation exacerbates this situation considerably.

In summation:

• CCAC’s most pressing need is for access to capital dollars. Failing access to capital funds, an increasing percentage of operating funds will inevitably be diverted from education to maintenance and repairs of physical plant, self-funding of our technological base, and an inability to sustain existing critical workforce training programs. 
• Second, de facto reductions of operating funds, which may now occur for the second consecutive year, will result in the erosion of our core educational programs, and in increases in tuition and fees that will sooner rather than later result in financial denial of access to education and training for our lower income population.
• Finally, we need to be mindful that Pennsylvania does not function in geographic isolation. The less educated and trained our workforce population, the less competitive will be our workforce. In a knowledge age economy, jobs flow to localities where workforces are the most competitive and productive.  The ultimate victims are our workers, the companies who employ them, and the viability of our state's economy.  The statewide economy is presently at risk, and we are mightily concerned that funding shortfalls will imperil fulfillment of the community college mission, and therefore our state's economy.  

As the community college in Pennsylvania with the largest workforce training programs, and the only one to support a middle college, CCAC is something of a lightening rod in the vanguard of the adverse consequences of funding shortfalls. We are not over dramatizing. Rather, we are defining reality and a sad, but predictable, future unless material changes occur in the ways in which community colleges are funded. We are hopeful that the Rendell Administration and both houses of the legislature will evaluate our financial needs in the context defined, and will respond positively.

Thank you for your time and for considering the issues facing the community colleges.