[V]ermont State Colleges have requested funds to help with the cost of uniting Lyndon and Johnson into the Northern Vermont University. The governor has asked lawmakers to set aside more than half a million dollars to get them through the first year of the transition. The money was included in a budget adjustment request.
The VSC expects the transition to cost a total of $2 million — with $1 million of that going toward marketing and branding the new school.
Chancellor Jeb Spaulding, who heads up the state college system, said Gov. Phil Scott asked if they needed the full amount upfront. They rewrote the budget spreading the costs over three years and asked for a total of $770,000 in the first year. The majority of those funds will go toward creating a common IT platform and other technological needs.
Scott included the full $770,000 in his proposal to the legislature.
“We were very pleased,” Spaulding said, adding that the governor’s support is a “ringing endorsement.”
In the fall, the VCS Board of Trustees approved a merger of Lyndon College and Johnson College to keep them afloat. If they had remained separate the colleges would have spent down their reserves by fiscal year 2018 and would have then begun operating at a loss of around $2 million a year. By uniting, trustees expect to be operating in the black by FY2020.
“We have done a lot to tighten our belts in the last few years,” Spaulding told lawmakers on the House Education Committee on Wednesday.
The unification is part of an effort to find ways to be more efficient across the public college system. They have reduced the employer contributions to health care, consolidated some administration positions and the salaries and benefits went down by $3.6 million since 2014, according to Spaulding.
“Despite these actions, the innovations and belt tightening, we are still asking for significant help from the legislature…. to address the challenges we face,” Spaulding said.
Half of the $2 million in transition costs for the merger of the two state colleges will be spent on marketing and branding for the new institution. The $1 million over three years is an increase from the projected one-time budget of $750,000 that Spaulding offered when the unification was put to the Board of Trustees in September.
The newer version of the budget sets aside $200,000 this fiscal year, $500,000 in 2018 and $300,000 in 2019 for brand strategy development, including marketing and the design of the initial website for the university, according to Tricia Coats, director of external and governmental affairs at VSC.
When asked for more detail, Coates said that the transition team has put out a request for marketing and branding proposals. “We don’t have it itemized. In fact, we’re just now meeting with marketing/branding firms that have submitted proposals through our RFP process which is giving us more information to inform specifics in the budget,” she said.
Spaulding said branding was more than changing the letterhead on stationary. “This is a once in a blue moon opportunity to actually increase our attractiveness to students in-state and out-of-state. It will require some bright and creative people. If we don’t take advantage of this opportunity it won’t include the benefits baked into our financial projections.”
VSC needs to increase enrollment, as well as gain state support and make a “modest” increase in tuition to put the system in a better financial place.
Vermont’s public colleges cost more to go to than all but one other state in the country, yet it also has a “lackluster” college going rate, according to Spaulding.
