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NIC switches leagues

by MAUREEN DOLAN/Staff writer
| March 14, 2014 9:00 PM

COEUR d'ALENE - They're going regional.

North Idaho College trustees decided Thursday that for all sports except wrestling, the college will part ways with the National Junior College Athletics Association and realign itself with the Northwest Athletics Association of Community Colleges.

The five-member board voted 3-1 in favor of moving forward with the conference change.

Christie Wood cast the dissenting vote and Todd Banducci was present, but abstained.

"I believe the process is severely flawed," Wood said, during a discussion before the vote.

President Joe Dunlap and Athletics Director Al Williams recommended to the board on Feb. 26 that the conference change was the best way the college could address a pending budget shortfall of $2.3 million. The switch is expected to save NIC roughly $600,000 per year in travel and scholarship costs and generate some tuition revenue for the college's general fund. It will also remove NIC all from national competition, except in wrestling.

Some longtime NIC athletics supporters strongly opposed the move, stating it will reduce the quality of athletic play.

Banducci and Wood each said Thursday that they felt the issue had been expedited unnecessarily, and that the way it was rolled out had divided people against each other on campus. The pair unsuccessfully lobbied their fellow trustees to consider delaying the decision until after the board begins working in April to set next year's budget.

"To make a budget decision outside the budget process is fundamentally wrong," Wood said.

Dunlap said all departments on campus are expected to share the burden of dealing with the $2.3 million budget deficit.

"The response from the athletics department was that there is no room to cut the budget without losing sports teams," Dunlap said.

Williams said increased travel expenses to out-of-state games has put a major strain on his department's budget. Right now, the athletics budget is about $300,000 short for next year, he said.

"I can't field nine teams in NJCAA with the same budget," Williams said. "We would have to cut a minimum of two sports, probably closer to five."

In light of the college's decreasing enrollment, Trustee Ron Nilson said he did not think that delaying the decision on the conference switch would change anything.

"I think we need to get in front of this," Nilson said.

Christie Wood said she felt there were several areas of the budget that they could consider taking funds from to address the athletics department's shortage. She pointed to the college's capital improvement fund in the NIC budget. That fund comprises $2.4 million in local property taxes the college has collected each year since 2008 when the board at that time elected to exercise forgone taxing authority to help purchase the DeArmond mill site adjacent to the college. The trustees at that time suggested those funds should be set aside and used to help meet the college's facilities needs.

"It is truly with a heavy heart and deep regret that we have to address this issue at all... we really don't want to have to make this decision," said board chair Ken Howard.

He said the trustees have to consider how their decision will affect the rest of the college beyond athletics. NIC's mission statement is to educate all students, he said.

Howard reminded the trustees that they could raise tuition or taxes to fill the budget gap.

"We could, as suggested, maybe raid funds that we have tried very hard to hold back for capital improvements for the CTE and PTE (career and professional technical education) programs that we've always said are our primary capital improvements," Howard said.

That will make it difficult, he said, for the trustees to ask the voters next fall or in the spring, to approve a bond to pay for an expansion of the technical education programs.

Howard said the board received 140 written comments by email on this issue, and just 18 were against moving to the NWAACC.

He disagreed with comments that the issue had pitted people against one another on campus, and said it's an emotional situation that the trustees have to cut through.

"I think it's time to move forward, to make this decision. It is an appropriate time to do it," Howard said.

Howard, Nilson, and Judy Meyer voted in favor of the move.