THE GORGE — Small Business Development Center (SBDC) activity and a cafe perpetually in the red drew the most questions from directors at Columbia Gorge Community College’s (CGCC) April 21 board meeting.
Greg Price, head of the SBDC, gave the program’s annual presentation to the board. SBDC gives technical help and training for small businesses and entrepreneurs. They teach more than 30 courses and, Price said, brought more than $3 million in investment to the north-central Oregon region this year, while also helping 11 new businesses get started.
Recently, four employees lost their jobs to funding cuts from CGCC, and another resigned. Each Oregon SBDC office is supported by a partnership that includes the college, the State of Oregon through Business Oregon, and the U.S. Small Business Administration, with additional support in some cases from grants, fees, or other local sources.
At CGCC, the federal government gives each office $40,000, and CGCC pays $40,000 in matching funds. Next year that rises to an $80,000 required match.
In previous years, CGCC paid extra, from $90,000-$100,000. The SBDC then taught FTE classes, which the college claimed reimbursement for, thus turning a profit.
A few years back, Price successfully competed for about a quarter million in state money through HB 3410, with which he built a bigger FTE program run by additional staff. The goal was a sustainable program supported by new revenue streams, he said.
That revenue stream, he hoped, would be a chunk off the college’s reimbursement for all that juicy FTE. With that, he could retain most of his new staff.
A single SBDC business course costs just 27 hours of live instruction. When CGCC teaches a regular FTE course, it takes about 510 hours of instruction, he said. So it’s “low-hanging fruit” for the college’s budget.
For the last two years, CGCC provided the minimum in funding, simply matching the federal $40,000, Price said. Last year, instead of 49 FTE courses, he could only teach 20.
Price said that with better understanding of the financial processes, the SBDC and college are working together. “I know the college is very supportive of what we do, and I know it was a very challenging period for the college,” he said. CGCC has committed to the required $80,000 plus extra for small business management programs in future.
He hopes, in the future, for an assistant manager to help regrow the program. He is also looking for a local, bilingual adviser to work part-time.
Statewide, five SBDC centers have closed in the past two years, which prompted questions from the board. For the previous 43 years, no centers closed. The closures are due to funding difficulties at host colleges, and conflicts of interest at the Eastern Oregon University office led by Rep. Greg Smith; CGCC’s center took on Wheeler County after EOU shut down.
New mandates in their federal contract relate to transition planning, cybersecurity, and AI. About 60% of clients are women.
Financial report
Next, Vice President Sam Draper gave a monthly financial report. They’re in good shape for revenue, he said.
Expenditures are at 68% of budget, so the college is under-spending a little. He noted that for next fiscal year, he expects tuition and state appropriations to remain similar. However, President Kenneth Lawson later noted enrollment is down by an estimated 10-15% this year — mostly in SBDC classes, GED, and English for speakers of other languages.
Asked about the cafe always losing money, Draper noted it’s “a little bit of a public service.” The cafe and bookstore serve students on campus, but with the dorm less than full, they’re always losing money and the college makes up for their losses.
“If we could double the number of kids here on campus, we can probably really increase the amount of sales,” Draper noted. “It’s a perennial problem across higher education, the fact that food services and bookstores lose money; but we certainly should try to do better.”
Lawson said this will eventually be a priority problem. Bond projects include fixing up the commercial kitchen, which he hopes will bring in more revenue.
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