CEI struggles with state budget cuts; impact felt beyond campus

IDAHO FALLS — The College of Eastern Idaho has had to eliminate eight positions, contract three programs and cut its esports team due to cuts to state agencies this legislative session.

“We worked very hard to not cut a single academic program,” CEI President Lori Barber told EastIdahoNews.com last week. “We had to reconfigure. We had to rethink how we’re doing it, but not one academic program was cut.”

As reported by the Idaho Capital Sun, last week the Senate narrowly approved 4% budget cuts for most state agencies in Senate Bill 1331. The House then approved the bill by more than a two-thirds supermajority on Friday. The bill now sits with Gov. Brad Little.

EastIdahoNews.com reached out to several local legislators about the bill.

Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, responded and said she didn’t support it as she thought the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee originally worked hard to find real waste, and this bill instead made cuts across the board.

“Ultimately, the goal by many in the body is to gut government,” Mickelsen told EastIdahoNews.com. “I didn’t come to Boise to burn the state down. I came to make sure that vital functions of government are funded. Right now, the Legislature is being penny-wise but pound-foolish.”

As reported by Idaho Ed News, CEI is one of a few state educational institutions struggling with the cuts.

Penny Lyon, CEI’s CFO, told EastIdahoNews.com that there’s about a $720,000 deficit this year from the cuts, accounting for the 4%. CEI receives 61% of its funds from the state.

And cuts are expected to increase to a $755,000 shortfall in fiscal year 2027.

“When we look at the impacts to the College of Eastern Idaho, the impacts compound and cause significant ongoing problems,” Mickelsen said. “For $755,000, we have negative impacts of over $7.4 million of economic impact to our community. When we look at what is causing the problems with high home prices, we need look no further than not having enough trained tradesmen and craftsmen, which are educated by our community colleges.”

What has changed at CEI

Barber said that of the eight positions eliminated, five were full-time and three were part-time. Most of the individuals currently holding the positions will remain with the college through the end of the academic year or the fiscal year.

Barber said the programs being scaled back are for practical nursing, energy systems and dental assistants.

For the practical nursing program, this meant although the school had 30 qualified applicants this spring, it was able to take half of them because it didn’t have sufficient funds to hire a clinical instructor.

“Instead of hiring somebody and most likely having to lay them off, we just said we’re only able to take 15 students,” Barber said.

For the energy systems and dental assistant programs this meant scaling back the classloads required in the program. Energy systems, traditionally a two-year program, will be a one-year program. The dental assistant program, traditionally two semesters, will be one semester.

Also, CEI has cut its esports program. Although students will still have an area to get together and game, there will no longer be a coordinator or team.

“That was a very hard decision,” Lyon said. “We don’t have a sports team, so esports was our sports team. So that was a very difficult decision that we had to make.”

“We’re also doing some actual, physical rearranging of different divisions, and by doing this we’re going to be able to reduce the number of administrative assistants that we actually need, and that is not going to entail letting anybody go,” Barber said.

Rethinking budgeting

Lyon said to prepare for the budget cuts, this year the college decided to use zero-based budgeting — where budgets were started from scratch at zero and are built with justification for each line item.

“That has been a huge challenge for the teams because we’ve had to look at every expense they’re spending,” Lyon said. “It’s also been very enlightening to see what’s going on in the college and how we could be more efficient.”

Barber said there are ongoing discussions on how to deal with budget cuts in the long term.

“Tuition increase is on the table, but it would be a very modest one, if any at all,” Barber said.

Increasing enrollment with a decreasing budget

This spring, CEI’s current enrollment counts are almost an 11% increase over last spring, and it’s still enrolling more. Overall, CEI has had a 250% increase in enrollment since 2018, around when the school first became a community college.

Barber said that as budget cuts are underway, it’s particularly a struggle for the college to change focus from growth to a model of sustainability.

“Students want to be here, and the businesses are ready for these qualified employees, and that pipeline is now slowing down,” Lyon said. “That impacts the entire community, not just CEI.”