Grande Prairie Regional College is looking at cutting its budget by $5.2 million dollars over the next two years.
President and CEO Don Gnatiuk explains the provincial budget included reductions in operating grants, and nothing to cover inflation and wage increases.
However, he says they were prepared.
“Going back to November when we were watching the economy change, we started running various scenarios. So we ran scenarios well above this and well below this, so when this happened it was right in our range of predictability.”
Gnatiuk says their top focus is maintaining its service to students and the region, and they’re looking for any way they can minimize the impact on classrooms.
“In principal, we’re looking at all kinds of revenue generating opportunities, profit generating opportunities, and those are the kinds of things. We’re looking for partnerships; any way that we could lever our resources to an improved level of service.”
Gnatiuk says services and programs will be affected, and decisions will be made over the next couple of weeks.
A balanced budget is expected to be presented in late April.