Trustees vote against Question 1

Vote on Question One The Board of Trustees voted against question one. At last week's meeting, two students, Timothy Briggs and Erin Kunigel, said that a yes vote has false promises.

"The College will take a five percent hit, North Adams will lose 65 percent of its funding, and the North Adams public schools will lose 31 percent of theirs," said Kunigel.

The students pointed out that The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald support a "no" vote. Currently, the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce and Berkshire Community College have voted against it as well. If passed, the question will increase tuition across the state of Massachusetts.

On Oct. 24, in Murdock Hall at 1 p.m. the students will hold a press conference. In attendance will be Mayor Barrett and State Rep. Dan Bosley. To get a speedy vote from the Board, a vote was taken immediately, with a unanimous vote against the question. The College was audited

David Dilulis from O'Connor and Drews reported that the College has $31 million in small assets and $22 million in net assets as of June 2007.

He said, "The College is strong as always and you should be thrilled with your fiscal year. There hasn't been a turnover in staff since we've been working with you. It shows a lot for people to work here."

The College was reviewed by O'Conner and Drews on Oct. 7. Grant discussed the budget

"Life on the campus goes on," Grant said, referring to the budget cuts made around the state. "And it goes on very well," she added.

The College has only taken a 5 percent hit, which amounts to $718,000.

"It was clear that it was going to happen," she said. "We've treated that very conservatively."

Grant discussed that when the College received their fiscal budget, they took into account that budget cuts would occur and so pretended they never had that money.

Grant said that the College can manage to work through this without raising student fees.

She also said record numbers have been coming to open house, with a total of 460 individuals thus far.

"We're hopeful that we won't get another cut. The governor is trying to protect education," Grant said. "We have strong reason to believe that [the Center for Science and Innovation] will be a priority project."