{"id":26486,"date":"2025-02-13T13:03:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T21:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=26486"},"modified":"2025-03-05T09:52:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T17:52:34","slug":"camosun-projects-3-million-deficit-this-fiscal-year-president-says-we-can-get-to-the-other-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2025\/02\/13\/camosun-projects-3-million-deficit-this-fiscal-year-president-says-we-can-get-to-the-other-side\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun projects $3-million deficit this fiscal year, president says \u201cwe can get to the other side\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dealing with a $5-million loss of revenue from international tuition, Camosun College has announced a projected $3-million deficit for this fiscal year, which ends March 31. The college expects another $5-million loss of tuition next fiscal with a further drop in international student enrolment, creating a cumulative $10-million loss.<\/p>\n

Camosun president Lane Trotter says that the deficit is linked \u201cclearly\u201d to international student numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start of this current fiscal year, almost a year ago, we were looking at 2,200 [international] students then, and that was based on the trends that we saw of students coming in,\u201d says Trotter. \u201cFor next fiscal year, which starts April 1, we\u2019re looking at 1,200 international students. So how things changed so rapidly in that year is in September 2024, our numbers were just over 1,800. In January, just a month ago, our numbers were approximately 1,600, and then as we look at… the number of students coming in and the number of students who are graduating and leaving, we\u2019re projecting 1,200 next year. So that\u2019s a swing of 1,000 students. The impact on that is very dramatic and very immediate, which is where that cumulative $10-million\u2014at least $10-million\u2014deficit comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Camosun College’s Lansdowne campus (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Camosun\u2019s budget this fiscal year is $179 million; approximately 45 percent of that comes from a grant the college gets from the province, while tuition makes up 33 percent, almost $60 million. Of the 33 percent, international enrolment accounts for $34 million, or 19 percent of total revenue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The college is mandated to run a break-even budget, so it implemented measures such as an essential spending freeze (no travel expenses reimbursed, no Christmas party), keeping vacant positions unfilled, and instituting layoffs. In a February 5, 2025 email to employees, the college wrote, \u201cThe layoff process started in fall 2024 and is still ongoing. Unfortunately, there is not a firm timeline of when it will end.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trotter says that while the 2024\/25 and 2025\/26 fiscal years will run at deficits, Camosun\u2019s proposed plan to get back to a break-even budget\u2014a plan it has to have if it\u2019s running a deficit, and must be approved by the minister of post-secondary education and future skills, and the minister of finance\u2014should see the college with a balanced budget for the 2026\/27 fiscal year, something that, as of now, Trotter defends as feasible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to use a word that sometimes reporters hate: it depends<\/i> on factors we don\u2019t know,\u201d he says. \u201cWith what we know right now, we think we can get to the other side, and we\u2019ve done this without cancelling programs. We\u2019re working with other agencies on some of the services that we were previously looking at, and we\u2019ll work with those agencies to work together to deliver those services, because that\u2019s also within their mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trotter admits that the cost-cutting decisions have been difficult, and says that it\u2019s been hard on morale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are colleagues, and friends. These are people we\u2019ve known for a long time,\u201d says Trotter. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not just them\u2014it\u2019s their families that are being impacted. We worry about all our colleagues and employees at this institution… I wish there was another way forward, but we have to align our expenses to the revenue that\u2019s coming in, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing, and… Yeah, that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The college \u201cdoesn\u2019t have a lot of manoeuvring room,\u201d says Trotter, as it\u2019s looking at a $10-million cumulative loss in tuition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all happening when we were just named one of the top employers in the province,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the level of irony in that is significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trotter says that he understands that Camosun students are worried, and he stresses that despite rumours of programs being cut, that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinue to take your courses and programs; we have no plans to cancel courses and programs,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re in a program, you will finish that program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dealing with a $5-million loss of revenue from international tuition, Camosun College has announced a projected $3-million deficit for this fiscal year, which ends March 31. The college expects another $5-million loss of tuition next fiscal with a further drop in international student enrolment, creating a cumulative $10-million loss. Camosun president Lane Trotter says that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26486"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26573,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26486\/revisions\/26573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}