Dunlap: NIC 'needs' driving budget request

BOISE — North Idaho College has asked state lawmakers for $302,300 to expand programs at its Sandpoint Outreach Center.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has requested $226,700 for the same project.

After giving a budget talk Monday to the Idaho Legislature’s joint budget committee, NIC President Joe Dunlap said that needs are driving the school’s state budget request that’s more than $400,000 above Otter’s.

Did a different perspective than the governor’s on the state’s economy figure into the higher NIC budget request?

“No, we just made our request based on what the needs are,” Dunlap said.

In addition to the potential Sandpoint expansion, those needs — according to information released by NIC — include an NIC request for $84,200 for increases in employee compensation — a line that was zero in the governor’s budget recommendation.

In an interview, Dunlap said the potential Sandpoint program expansion would include aid to the currently-being-developed, “medical assisted program, (and), physical therapy program.”

“And the question then becomes, when can we bring those (programs) up there?” Dunlap said. “And, the earliest would be this next fall.”

Dunlap noted that a science lab already is in place at the Sandpoint Outreach Center “because of the fundraising of the citizens of Sandpoint.”   

NIC — which gets its funding not only from the state general fund (22.4 percent) but from tuition and fees, county property taxes and other sources — weighed in with a $10.8 million request for its state funding for the budget year starting July 1. Otter has asked for about $10.4 million.

Dunlap thanked lawmakers for the $10 million state appropriation for NIC for the current budget year.

“We have submitted a budget that represents an approach of fiscal responsibility and accountability,” Dunlap told the Joint finance-Appropriations Committee, “with very modest requests in areas such as benefit costs and inflationary adjustments.”

The NIC president also said that the school’s enrollment, currently 4,400, has declined in recent years. “Consistent with national trends, our enrollment has peaked and begun to decline,” Dunlap said. “We have a decrease of approximately 11 percent in our enrollment this year.”

NIC’s request for more than $300,00 to expand the Sandpoint center offerings represented its largest state budget enhancement item.

NIC also asked for $101,700 for  “Veteran’s Center” funding that wasn’t included in Otter’s budget request for the community college.

Dunlap told state lawmakers that Coeur d’Alene-based NIC — which has three outreach centers in North Idaho — has an annual $164.6 million economic impact in Kootenai, Shoshone, Bonner, Boundary, and Benewah counties.