The College of New Caledonia has halted almost a decade of deficits, passing a $59.7 million balanced budget Friday that used just under $1.9 million in surplus from this year.
The board also signaled its intention to bring back the two-year dental hygiene program in 2017, which stopped taking in new students in the fall of 2015.
The one-year dental assisting program has remained in place.
The surplus comes after a year of change at the college as it addressed a $2.8 million deficit last year and restructured, moving away from what CNC president Henry Reiser called social programming, to its core focus - educational programming - and prompting communities with regional campuses, like Burns Like, to warn the shift will cause long-term damage to the community.
Of the in-year surplus, next year's budget used about
$1 million to cover increased costs in utilities, salaries.
It also mentions a plan to hire an executive director of communications, which Reiser said will help the college better reach the community.
About $830,000 has not been assigned to any projects to give the board flexibility, new chair Jason Fisher said.
"It's unallocated for a reason, so we can really look at what the priorities are, and we can get the most impact for the dollars. There's no question that communication with the communities, engagement with the communities is going to be critical," said Fisher, adding the strategic plan - not yet public but approved Friday - identified consultation as a key aspect.
A "very concerned" faculty representative Mark Wendling was the only member to vote against the motion.
"We have many silos. We have many areas that are broken and now within the silos I'm actually seeing some empire building," said Wendling, returning to a repeated criticism that administrative staff outpaces the number of instructors at the college.
Those internal rifts were serious enough for the faculty association to pass two motions of non-confidence in the college's administrators in 2015. It sent a letter to the Ministry of Advanced Education in February, shortly before the ministry appointed its deputy minister Sandra Carroll to the board as well as former Deputy Minister Robert Lee Doney.
At the April meeting outgoing chair Vince Prince, who served for one year, was replaced by Fisher, an associate deputy minister of the Ministry of Forests and Lee Doney was named vice-chair. That makes three provincial appointees to the college's 15-member board.
As a Chartered Professional Accountant, Wendling said he has had problems with the approach to budgeting in past years.
"This budget process has been no different. How we expect we'll have different results, I'm not sure."
The February month-end statements, using raw data and with the caveat the documents had been prepared "expeditiously," showed a $6.8 million surplus.
The swing from a $2.8 million shortfall last year to $1.8 million surplus prompted the faculty association to call for better transparency and communication.
Carole Whitmer, who founded the dental hygiene program, started her presentation asking why the public board documents weren't available online before the meeting as used to be common practice. At the April meeting, the package was sent the day before.
But the board seemed aware its past projections were problematic, and spoke of creating better reporting mechanisms.
"It's an ongoing process and we've asked for a number of reports... and ensuring we have better reporting coming back to the board on a quarterly basis. We are doing a better job of testing our assumptions throughout the year," Fisher said.
When he presented the audited financial statements, accountant Bill Cox said he thought the college's financial position is "pretty strong."
Some of the unexpected savings came from a more than million dollar increase in tuition compared to the budget's estimates.
The college also saw an increase in "other" revenue.
"You exceeded your revenues for the year, fortuitous things happened," Cox said.
"That means you also spent more than you budgeted, but that was a conscious decision.
"It's a good news story."
At the end of March, seven faculty received layoff notices, said faculty association vice president Jan Mastromatteo, three of which were connected to the dental hygiene program. One Prince George position has been saved and Mastromatteo said another in Burns Lake looks promising, but questioned why layoffs would be sent when CNC is in a surplus year. None of the layoffs are final and Reiser said any jobs lost would be connected to programs no longer offered or those with low enrolment.
In what student representative Nathan Giede acknowledged was "a bizarre twist," he signaled he would not be standing in solidarity with the faculty to vote down the budget.
"I'm hopeful we can build a team here on the board that wants to see a shift in the culture," he said.
"That requires that the trust and groundwork be laid. We need a budget to do that."
