The Heartland Community College Board of Trustees adopted an annual 2025 budget Tuesday that’s 9% smaller than the current spending plan.
The nearly $126 million plan does not include some of the major expenses tied to several large projects, such as the college’s new agriculture complex and Advanced Manufacturing Center, according to Heartland Vice President of Finance Noah Lamb.
Lamb said the budget does include some contraction to account for a slight drop in enrollment.
“It was a collaboration across campus to see where could we just reduce a little bit on the expenditure side to where we could assure a balanced budget,” Lamb said.
Lamb said costs tied to inflation continue to rise for the college and higher health insurance costs contribute to a near 6% increase in staff compensation, while Heartland faculty and staff are due to get annual raises of 2.5%.
Lamb said that keeps the district on pace with comparable colleges. This year’s budget included an 11% pay boost last year after a salary survey showed Heartland staff were making less than competitors.
Heartland is getting additional revenue from a 2% increase in funding from the state. The college board earlier this year approved a $2 per-credit-hour increase in tuition and a $1 increase in its student activity fee.
The board will review the district’s annual tax levy later this year. The district projects an 11% increase in property values across the district. Lamb said that will enable the college to keep staff compensation competitive and provide additional student supports while keeping the tax rate the same, which board policy has prescribed.
Enrollment
Heartland saw enrollment slip 1.4% this year and total credit hours fell 2%. It's not much of a drop, but as educators worry about a pending enrollment cliff caused by lower birth rates, it's concerning.
“We think of ourselves in Bloomington-Normal as immune to some of those things. We have new employers coming in, but our district goes beyond Bloomington-Normal,” said Heartland Vice President of Enrollment Sarah Diel-Hunt.
Diel-Hunt said those employers may also be playing a role in Heartland's enrollment dip. She said it's possible more college age adults are going straight into the workforce.
“Employers are hiring a lot straight out of high school with some fairly decent wages locally,” she said, adding there’s also been an uptick in students going directly into four-year colleges.
HCC shows a 2.5% drop in the number of high school graduates in the district in 2022, at a time when the community started to grow so fast it can't build enough homes to keep up.
Diel-Hunt said the college has seen an increase in students already in the workforce and are looking to upskill.
HCC was what Diel-Hunt called an “inevitable” decline in dual credit-tuition-free offerings in area high schools.
“Enrollment isn’t going to grow forever,” she said, adding several high schools lost dual credit instructors to retirement or resignation and could not easily be replaced.
“There’s definitely no drop in demand for dual credit,” she said.
