TORRINGTON – Eastern Wyoming College – and community colleges around the state – are feeling the economic pinch of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.
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TORRINGTON – Eastern Wyoming College – and community colleges around the state – are feeling the economic pinch of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.
President Lesley Travers on Tuesday told the Board of Trustees, meeting virtually from around the region, an anticipated windfall from the state may not appear. Travers told the board in March that plans were in the works at the state level to provide an additional $3.5 million to the state’s community colleges. EWC’s share would have been about $500,000 in additional funding, part of a one-time $5 million distribution to the colleges that was included in the state budget at the time.
Now, due to the economic impacts across the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, Travers said Tuesday that money may not be coming.
“I heard this morning the $3.5 million the community colleges were given, $500,000 to each college, I heard this morning they might take it back,” she said. “That was pretty disturbing.”
Travers based her belief the money wouldn’t be coming on meetings with Gov. Mark Gordon’s staff and a report that said the financial situation “isn’t pretty for the state,” she told trustees. “I’m not going to count any of those chickens until they’re in the bank, I guess.”
A significant portion of a projected $9 million deficit faced this week by the state’s community colleges is due to closures mandated by Gordon, Travers said. That necessitated reimbursing students for housing costs and food plans they’d paid for, anticipating a full school year.