Agenda - 10-05-1987 - Laserfiche WebLink

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- 2 - 3 3 4 (5) If the class is composed of all or mostly senior citizen students it is nearly impossible to recover the costs of those particular courses without reducing the teacher hourly salary rate by as much as 50% in many cases. (6) Aside from the course classifications listed above (avocational, practical skills and academic extension) we are allowed only two other continuing education course classifications - occupational extension and literacy skills. (7) The intent of any course that we classify as occupational extension must be job preparation or job giIRli fication enhancement. Therefore, we must very carefully ensure that those occupational extension courses as well as others will withstand an audit. Consequently, we have very few opportunities to offer continuing education occupational extension courses that are specifically targeted to senior citizens. (Senior citizens are entitled to fee exption from occupational extension courses as well as all other classifications but normally they would avail themselves of that en- titlement by enrolling in a public offering that is designed to meet the needs of a specific working population) . To introduce you to our funding formula for avocational, practical skills and academic extension courses, I would like to use an example: This past year we paid a crafts instructor at a nutrition site $10.50 per hour. We also contributed the employer share of social security which is 7.15% of the salary ($.75 per hour in this case) . Therefore, our total salary outlay for this class was $11.25 per hour. This particular class of senior citizens (which is our larg- est class among the five nutrition sites in Orange County and con- sequently provides the highest rate of return) averages about 20 students each cycle. The new State FTE formula for this avocational class reimburses Durham Tech $.35 per student meri7ership hour. From the actual direct cost figures mentioned above we know how much honey we must get back from the State in order to recover our outlays - $11.25 per hour. When we apply the State formula in this case we find: 20 students X $.35 = $7.00 or a net loss of $4.25 per hour. The above example is atypical in that most classes for senior citizens bring a lower rate of return. In addition, we incur other costs such as classroom supplies and materials, travel and administrative costs which were not considered here. The above example clearly demonstrates the very difficult situation we face. In order to provide continued service to our senior citizens we can only resort to the following situations (all of which are tuition/registration fee exempt for those citizens 65 and older) : Literacy skills for those who do not have a high school diploma or ®; regular curriculum credit courses; occupational extension courses that are normally designed and targeted for the working population; and those avocational, practical skills and academic extension courses that we will continue to offer to the public at large as we identify needs, plus those very large classes specifically for senior citizens that will bring a rate of return that will pay the class expenses. We hope you understand the situation as I have described it and I invite you to contact me if you have any comments or questions.