Although it won’t be considered by the Odessa College Board of Trustees until they meet at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 1, the panel heard during a Wednesday workshop that the budget will increase to $66,475,903 — a bump of about $7.7 million.
The unrestricted budget is about $18 million. The total budget is $85,006,241.
Chief Financial Officer Brandy Ham said that is an increase of 13.1 percent.
“A majority of that change is related to state appropriations. With House Bill 8, we’re going to receive an additional $4.3 million in state appropriations. That’s a 43.8 percent increase,” Ham said.
The tax rate won’t be considered by the board until September. The proposed rate is 0.149417 per $100 valuation for maintenance and operations and 0.021744 per $100 valuation for debt service. The total would be $0.171161 per $100 valuation.
The current rate is $0.164191 per $100 valuation for maintenance and operations and 0.024452 per $100 valuation for debt service for a total of 0.188643 per $100 valuation.
“What we’re looking at right now for this particular budget is a decrease in our overall tax rate of between 9 and 9.3 percent. It’s still going to bring in additional revenue, but that’s really related to our increase in mineral values,” Ham said.
She added that they are looking at an overall decrease to the average homeowner of $27 with the average home at about $165,000. Ham said these numbers are estimates.
Trustees also discussed trying to recover money owed to the college by Collections Unlimited.
“We entered into agreement probably a decade, maybe even a little longer than that at this point, with a company to collect past due balances from students. We have to collect from the collection company. At one point, they owed us $110,000. They owe us $96,000 at this time,” Vice President of Administrative Services Ken Zartner said.
“We have tried every way we possibly can to collect those funds back from them, working with our legal adviser, working through letters and payment plans and all sorts of stuff, but we haven’t received payments from them in quite some time. So we’re coming to the board to recommend that we pursue them in a more forceful way through lawsuits; whatever it may be. We have to get to that point to recover that $96,000 that is owed to us,” Zartner said.
They also discussed the purchase of Lab-Volt Instrumentation and Process Control which will be paid for by a $145,497 grant from the Permian Basin Area Foundation. They can get the equipment in about 60 days.
Zartner discussed renovating the parking lot at the fine arts building at a cost of $1,130,250 and will be done by MW Builders.
“With the completion of the HSB project (Health Sciences Building), we have to also redo the parking lot and make a clear pathway out to Andrews Highway. This was not part of the original HSB bid package. This is something that’s completely separate. This is something we had planned and in the works for some time,” Zartner said.
An opening ceremony for the Downtown Project at 222 E. Fourth St. is scheduled for 8 a.m. Thursday. It is part of the college’s Vision 2030. The first phase includes greenspace, a splashpad and event venue.
The board also discussed continuing to use Frost Bank as the college’s bank.
