WVNCC President Daniel Mosser: Colleges Accepting Taxpayer Funds Should Be Accountable to State
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WHEELING -- West Virginia Northern Community College President Daniel Mosser believes if a state college accepts taxpayer funds, it's only fair that college be subject to oversight by the state.
WVNCC would have been the only state college remaining under the rules of the State Higher Education Policy Commission or the Community and Technical College System of West Virginia if a proposed bill before the West Virginia Legislature had gone forward as initially proposed.
Senate Bill 550 passed out of the Senate Finance Committee last week, but not until changes were made to keep two-year state colleges under the oversight of the WVCTCS.
An earlier version of SB 550 would have allowed schools and community and technical colleges who receive less than 40% of their gross annual revenue from the state over a three-year period to be exempt from most oversight by the HEPC or WVCTCS.
But WVNCC is the only state college that receives more than 40% of its annual $15 million budget from the state, according to Mosser. As such, WVNCC would have been the only school subject to state rules.
The language in the bill now only applies to four-year schools, and all two-year schools regardless of funding levels would have to comply with the state under the bill.
Mosser said leaders of colleges and universities in West Virginia have been working with state lawmakers on the funding portion of the bill for much of the last three years, and are all in agreement with its language.
"I'm OK with the funding formula, but I would have taken out the clause about exemptions," he explained. "I worked in Maryland (at the College of Southern Maryland), and state funding was 30% of our budget. We were accountable to the state.
"If a college is taking state tax money, it should be accountable. We all are now, and it should remain that way," he said.