Sinclair trustees approve $130-million budget, give employees raises

Sinclair Community College’s board of trustees approved a $130-million budget for the school today that includes an employee pay raise.

Nearly all 3,000 full-time and part-time Sinclair faculty and staff will get a pay raise, according to the school.

Full-time faculty could get a 2.5 percent salary pool raise and a number of faculty will be given one-time bonuses of either $1,440 or $3,600, according to the budget. Sinclair will increase pay by $4,300 for faculty members who have been promoted.

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Full-time staff will receive a 2.5 percent salary pool raise and they are eligible for a 4 percent bonus based on their base salary, according to the budget. All part-time employees, including staff, faculty and adjunct faculty will receive a 2.5 percent pay raise.

The raises and bonuses will cost Sinclair $2.3 million, meaning the school will spend a total of $101.5 million on compensation in fiscal year 2019, which starts on July 1. Sinclair trustees approved a budget a year ago that also gave full-time faculty and staff the opportunity for a 2.5 percent raise and made some eligible for a one-time award of 2 percent of their base salary.

Overall spending at Sinclair will increase by 2.1 percent to $130.1 million in FY 2019 but the increase will be offset by a jump in revenue. Sinclair’s revenue is expected to increase in FY 2019 by 3.7 percent to $142 million, which is mostly the result of increased tuition and fees, state funding and levies, according to the budget.

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“The budget presented is consistent with the college’s long-range financial and sustainability goals,” said Sinclair president Steve Johnson.

Sinclair increased its auxiliary fee by $35 last year, netting the school another $1.6 million in revenue. Community colleges are also able to increase tuition by $10 for the 2018-2019 school year, which both Sinclair and Clark State Community College have planned to do.

Voters in November also widely approved a $28-million renewal levy for the community college based in downtown Dayton.

The state measures every public college’s fiscal health with something called a “Senate Bill 6 score,” an annual rating of 0 to 5.

Any school that falls below a 1.75 two years in a row is put on notice. Sinclair received a “perfect 5.0 financial rating” this year, said board of trustees chairman Rob Connelly.

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“Sinclair is a special and world leading place because of the great people that work here on behalf of our students,” Connelly said. “This has been an extraordinary year for Sinclair.

Separately, trustees approved more than $1.3 million to renovate a portion of Building three downtown to add three biology labs. Bilbrey Construction of Dayton has been contracted to do the renovations.

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