Broward College Board of Trustees Approves the Greater Impact Budget: Prioritizing Equity and Impact for Students and the Community

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (July 1, 2020) – The Broward College District Board of Trustees on Tuesday, June 30, passed The Greater Impact Budget: Prioritizing Equity and Impact for Students and the Community. The recommendations and approval follow nearly two years of developing a priority-based funding model that focuses the College's efforts toward investments that yield the most significant impact to students, the College, the taxpayer, and the community.  

The Greater Impact Budget proposes transformative, not incremental change. It prioritizes investments in programs and services that will lead to more equitable outcomes for students and a better return to the community. While requiring difficult decisions, the budget's structural changes help make the institution more resilient, with the capability to respond to the inevitable cycle of challenges.   

The new budget will allow for the hiring of a minimum of 36 full-time employees in critical areas that directly impact student success.  Specifically, the College will hire an additional 30 academic advisors to improve the student-to-advisor ratio, moving it from 700:1 to 350:1, an investment that benefits all 63,000 students. Data assessed by the College for the 2019-20 academic year shows that students who met with advisors in the fall persisted to spring at a rate of 78 percent compared to 58 percent for those who did not. Through The Greater Impact Budget, the College can increase tutors in courses with high failure rates, serving more than 9,500 students; invest in additional resources to address achievement gaps among its students based on race, ethnicity, poverty level, and age, impacting more than 30,000 students, and establish on-campus food pantries to serve 2,700 hungry students. In addition, the College plans to post and hire, at a minimum, six full-time faculty positions in the fall term to support unmet instructional needs.    

"I know this budget process has been ongoing for more than a year, and the decisions made were not easy but should yield exceptional results," said Gloria Fernandez, chair of the Broward College District Board of Trustees. "A great deal of assessment has gone into the budgetary recommendations with the focus of always keeping students at the forefront of what we do." 

As part of the budget approval to reallocate resources to impact all 63,000 students as described above, the Board approved the College's recommendation to discontinue its Athletics program, close the Early Childhood Demonstration Laboratory ("ECDL") School, suspend operations at Bailey Hall, OMNI, and the Planetarium ("Venues"). These adjustments include the reduction in force of 33 full-time employees (including 14 faculty counselors previously approved by the Board in April 2020 consistent with the timeline prescribed in the collective bargaining agreement) and the termination of 95 part-time employees.  

The Athletics program served 147 students. The cost per student athlete is $11,009. The ECDL served the children of 36 students and one College employee at a cost per student of $855, and due to COVID 19, employees of the College's Venues have no shows or events to manage. 

"Though requiring very difficult decisions, this budget prioritizes investments to ensure our current and future students will have access to more faculty, more advisors, more tutors, and we will have resources for those with food insecurity. " said Broward College President Gregory Adam Haile, J.D. "Thanks to the Board, our community, students and employees for their support to ensure we do all we can to aid those students who need us most and to address gaps in outcomes based on race, poverty level, and age.  Together we serve." 

The College has been working with the affected employees to provide support in their transition. Also, student-athletes who choose to continue their education at Broward College will receive their scholarships for an additional year. To date, more than half of the student-athletes who were offered scholarships for the 2020-21 academic year at Broward College have secured placement with other teams. For those students continuing to seek placement as student-athletes elsewhere, the Budget includes the retention of the Athletic Director for one year. The Athletic Director will use that time in part, to assist student-athletes seeking to play sports at another institution.  

While the College would expect to restart some components of its Venues operations in a post COVID-19 environment, it does not expect a revival of a College operated early childhood center or any intercollegiate athletics programs.    

-BC-  

About Broward College:  
Serving more than 63,000 students annually, Broward College provides residents with certificate programs, two-year university-transfer degrees, two-year career degrees, and baccalaureate degrees in selected programs. The mission of the College is to provide high-quality educational programs and services that are affordable and accessible to a diverse community of learners. For more information, visit www.broward.edu.