TORRINGTON – The Eastern Wyoming College (EWC) Board of Trustees met late Tuesday at 4 p.m. for the required monthly meeting of organizational agenda items.

Present at the meeting were EWC President Dr. Jeffry Hawes via Zoom, along with board chairman Jackie Van Mark and vice chair Rick Vonberg.

Additionally present were trustees Kurt Sittner, Doug Mercer, Randy Adams and Katherine Patrick, along with trustee advisor Jim Willox also via Zoom.

After months of planning and extensive discussion, the primary topic of the evening’s agenda focused mainly on the approval of the budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

Conspicuously, the attention fixated habitually on the presentations of EWC Chief Financial Officer, Kwin Wilkes, for a vast majority of the evening.

Memorably each board member was given an in-depth and compelling first-hand view of the extensive amount of planning and widespread calculation it takes to prepare a college economic plan.

“It’s an honor to introduce to you to one of the most important things I do,” Wilkes began before the board. “We have the budget book which is a documentation created by the state. This is something where certain pages need signatures which we’ll receive later on tonight. Now we are to have the budget approved by the first Thursday of July, and here we are. This budget book is a bit tedious and kind of a monster, and in the past, I’ve shied away from it. But tonight, we’re going to jump right into it, so let me just explain.”

Wilkes continued explaining in his presentation just how much the budget had been prepared, the insurmountable amount of time it took, and the importance for it to be finalized and approved for the benefit of college faculty, staff, students, and the community.

“The beginning of this project is the current funds budget,” Wilkes explained. “When I report every month in our fiscal report, we have funds that are numbered. However, we are not numbered in the budget book. With our numbering, any number that starts with a seven is what we call our plan funds. As part of our plan funds, we have our debt service, so that’s what we are showing in our budget book. We have the expenditure authority resolution, and you will see our numbers both balance and match which is exactly what we want. All funds together we are looking at $31,504,837 with all funds combined.”

“Hopefully as we continue, we will remain with a well-balanced budget rather than a carryover,” Wilkes continued. “Because of our past cyber issue, we pay a bit more for insurance now, but the premium should begin to drop by my estimation. There are different areas in the auxiliary fund such as food services and dormitories where we are going through some changes with the bookstore. Because of those changes, we are having to fund that position, which is roughly $55,000, and we have an increase in expenditures with our motor pool. All those things together create this kind of change.”

President Hawes would notably add to the presentation of Wilkes, citing these particular types of financial preparation will be exponentially crucial in ensuring the future economic prosperity of EWC.

Particularly when it comes to rising costs of insurance policies affecting both homeowners and businesses. 

“There are two different fronts,” Dr. Hawes said. “Prior to the cyber-attack in 2021, the college premium was around $19,000 and that premium is closer now to $45,000. Of course, this has been across the board with homeowners’ insurance and premiums this last year. The college itself is actually at a substantial rate despite having had a significant increase. A good percentage of that did hit this year, and a good chunk of it was in the last reevaluation with pretty much every homeowner and business in operation. There are many areas in our college where we are using institutional dollars to subsidize whether it be food services, dorms, or scholarships. We have many internal institutional scholarships we fund which will help package our resources. Additionally, we are going to be bringing in more which can help us look at profit, loss, and really help us with our budget areas.”

“What Kwin is ultimately doing is again in areas where we lack in revenue,” Dr. Hawes continued. “We have to use institutional dollars which has been our practice for a very long time here. Some of those issues is the fact our food prices had been the same for potentially a decade. Other institutions have raised their rates. We charge $1750 a semester where other colleges charge over $2500 a semester. That creates a deficit because we are not buying food, and those are the things we have to think about.”

The EWC president continued with an exemplary example of how even the smallest business economic conversion can affect a substantial organization like the college.

Interestingly enough, Dr. Hawes used one model piece of simple college entity which continues to evolve resulting in much bigger monetary change.

“I’ll be honest I was excited to know our book source was outsourced,” Dr. Hawes explained. “Students are going to many other places to buy books. It is not a money generator like it used to be. Many colleges used bookstores in the past as revenue to fund athletics. This was a model twenty years ago, whereas now students have other ways to access books and other resources. The bookstore environment doesn’t work like that anymore. It puts the burden back on us and proves it was a critical service we have to have. We are looking at a number of solutions that will get us through on efficiencies in delivering a more proficient product. We have to continue to evaluate and approve the data to collect and evaluate. I’m hoping by January we will have a crucial tool in place to critically evaluate every specific piece of information about where we are on some of these areas, so we can fine-tune and put in better management whatever the case may be.”

The board of trustees would then move forward with unanimously approving the budget for said fiscal year.

It should also be duly noted shortly before the meeting’s adjournment agenda items in regard to the EWC Rodeo Club purchasing and/or rent roping steers, a Veteran Services Coordinator with $25,000 funds, and an Alumni and Communications Coordinator with $56,500 funds provided by the EWC Foundation were motioned for approval.

The trustees would adjourn the meeting and move into executive session at promptly 7:26 p.m.

The next scheduled meeting will be held on August 13 at promptly 4 p.m.