Lewis Clark State College urges funding to close faculty pay gap, highlights LAUNCH and prison education gains

Kevin Campbell, the Legislative Services Office budget analyst, opened the colleges-and-universities portion of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee hearing with an overview of Lewis Clark State College’s budget and finance structure. "Madam Co Chair, Mr. Co Chair, Vice Chairs, members of JFAC, good morning. My name's Kevin Campbell. I'm a budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office," he said, before outlining tuition reappropriation, endowment funds and recent enhancements.

The college's president, Dr. Cynthia Pemberton, told the committee Lewis Clark is emphasizing workforce programs, student supports and efforts to close a persistent salary gap with K–12. "I am doctor Cynthia Pemberton, and I have the pleasure and the honor of serving as president at Lewis Clark State College," she said. Pemberton said the college used operational capacity enhancement funds largely to cover occupancy and operating costs for the new Schweitzer Career Technical Engineering Building, to expand marketing and to shore up IT and custodial support.

Why it matters: The presentation framed small regional universities' funding needs in several dimensions: (1) an enrollment-weighted formula called the Enrollment Workload Adjustment (EWA) that can raise or lower appropriation levels, (2) persistent salary…