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By Chris Brown

Cut by about 1.1 per cent

Medicine Hat College assessing impact of provincial budget cut

Mar 1, 2021 | 3:54 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Medicine Hat College wasn’t spared from cuts in last week’s provincial budget.

MHC will see a reduction of about 1.1 per cent, or about $340,000, in provincial funding next school year.

President and CEO Kevin Shufflebotham says it’s unknown how that cut will affect operations.

“The impact on programs and staffing we really don’t know at this time, but we have been considering various scenarios,” he says. “With this information what we’re going to be doing is working with our budget committee to figure out how this will impact the institution as a whole.”

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Shufflebotham says the number of students enrolled next school year will be an important factor, and as details like that become more clear they’ll then have a better idea about revenue.

The college’s total revenue is $56 million. It breaks down to about $32 million from the province (56 per cent), $11 million from tuition (20 per cent) and the rest from such things as donations, fundraising, parking, sales of goods and services and investments.

Taken together post-secondary institutions in Alberta saw a 6.2 per cent reduction in provincial funding, but that was not reduced equally among the schools.

Post-secondary institution funding will drop from $5.47 billion to $5.04 billion in 2021-22. It’s planned to increase to $5.11 billion in 2023-24.

The University of Alberta will see about 11 per cent less from the province for the upcoming school year.

Even though MHC didn’t see cuts as deep as other institutions, “a cut’s a cut,” says Shufflebotham.

He says any time there’s a decrease in revenue it has to be made up somewhere else.

“It’s either in tuition or it’s either in fundraising or parking or in investments. It’s really, we’re a business and we have to be good stewards of our resources. So any cuts, you know we really need to think about how we’re going to make that up. Are we going to offer the same programs? Are we going to have the same access for students?” Shufflebotham says.

“I just have to stress that Medicine Hat College is committed to serving the needs of students in our region and no matter what the budget is we will continue to do that.

Shufflebotham says they are planning to have a draft budget for the finance and audit committee in April and then deliver a budget to the board in May.