Photo by Eric Tichy Several Jamestown Community College Service Association supporters attended Tuesday’s meeting of the college’s Board of Trustees. Service Association members have been without a new contract since August 2019.

SUNY Jamestown Community College’s proposed $33.3 million operating budget for 2023-24 was unanimously approved this week by the college’s Board of Trustees.

The budget calls for a 2.6% increase in student tuition for the upcoming academic year — from the current yearly rate of $5,300 to $5,440. A 1.9% tuition increase also was approved for the 2022-23 budget. Trustee Barbara Hastings, chairwoman of the board’s Finance and Audit Committee, recommended that the budget be approved during Tuesday’s meeting. She said committee members had a productive discussion on the spending plan during their most recent meeting.

While Trustee Wally Huckno Sr. called the budget “sound,” he noted that the college did not receive an increase in state aid.

“I thought the people that put our budget together really had to be very careful,” he said, later adding, “that no increase in state aid, they said it’s coming next year. Well, I went to the barber today and they said free haircuts tomorrow, and that’s what I’m afraid of if we continue to do that. It’s very difficult for us to maintain everything.”

JCC is budgeting for 2,200 full-time equivalent students in the 2023-24 budget. As noted in its plan, estimated enrollment is the “cornerstone of the budget process of Jamestown Community College. The number of (full-time equivalent) is the basic measure of production used by SUNY, and the basis for determining the amount of tuition, chargeback and operating state aid revenue the college will receive.”

By comparison, JCC had 3,889 full-time equivalent students for the 2010-11 academic year. JCC is estimating revenues at $33,275,767 for the upcoming year. A little more than 29% of that revenue will come from student tuition; 15% from offsetting revenue; 24% from state aid; 24.7% from sponsor revenue; and 6.6% from fund balance use. “In preparing the 2023-24 budget, Jamestown Community College continues to experience the same revenue issue it has for the past several years,” the budget plan states. “The state continues to fund at less than the 33% established in the regulations. Consequently, more of the burden of financing a college education has fallen to the students and their families in the form of tuition and fees.”

In other news, Jeff Keppel, representing the JCC Service Association, made a plea Tuesday to board members regarding the years-long impasse in contract negotiations. The unit’s last three-year contract expired on Aug. 31, 2019.

“We’re not here trying to make anything a conflict or make any problems or whatever,” Keppel said before reading a letter that also was shared with the media.

Members within the bargaining unit include — among other non-instructional employees — IT workers, cleaners and laborers at the college. “We have performed our job duties without a contract for three academic years,” the Service Association said in its letter to board members. “We arrive at work every single day, in record high inflation and highest gas prices in years, without so much as a cost-of-living adjustment.”

From 2016 to present, Keppel said Service Association members have received a raise only once, a 1% bump for the 2018-19 academic year. “We’re here today because we need your help,” he continued. “The group that the college is using, we’re not going anywhere with them — we haven’t gone anywhere with them. We need you guys to step in (and) help out with this situation. We were 140-plus members. We’re down to 60-some members.”

He added, “The college is suffering because of it. You can see the grounds aren’t kept up to the point that they used to be in the past. The services in the cleaning is not kept up to what it used to be in the past. We need to get restored to our regular levels; we need to get a contract in place, get this contract so it’s fair for the college and fair for us.” Keppel is a labor relations specialist with New York State United Teachers.

Following the last contract’s expiration in August 2019, an impasse was declared in November 2019 followed by another impasse declared in September 2022.

“Impasse has failed,” Keppel said Tuesday. “We’re now moving to fact finding. It’s not going to get us anywhere to keep being at odds with each other. We need to come to some middle ground. … In our last mediation session, we gave the college an offer that moved head and toes above where everybody was before. We’re waiting to hear where that is.”

Afterward, Mark Ward, board chairman, thanked Keppel for submitting the letter. “All will be taken into consideration,” he said.

In addition to the Service Association, the three-year contract for Faculty Association members also expired in August 2019.