The Flathead Valley Community College Board of Trustees approved a permissive medical tax levy Monday to raise $87,768 for employee group health insurance.

College President Jane Karas said the levy of .42 mills will add $1.30 per year in additional tax for every $100,000 of taxable property value in the college district or Flathead County. Future levies would require another trustee vote.

Karas said this tax was necessary because no state money was appropriated to pay for the increase in health insurance costs. The impact was to shift the burden to local taxpayers through the permissive medical levy.

"We really don't have another option," Karas said.

The president said the college's health-care premium cost increase was $636 per employee. Each employee pays a share of his or her premium.

State statutes allow the board to impose medical levies without public votes as a method of providing health insurance for employees.

Also at the meeting, Faith Hodges, director of enrollment planning and research, presented reports showing a 45 percent enrollment increase in the summer session and 33 percent jump in full-time equivalent students for the fall semester.

Additional sign-ups since those reports bumped the fall number to an almost 35 percent increase. Hodges said that Flathead Valley Community college accounted for 70 percent of the enrollment expansion for the whole Montana system.

In response to the demand for classes, the college hired a record number of new faculty members who were introduced at the board meeting. Positions hired covered physics, nursing, culinary, criminal justice, natural resources, economics, biology and entrepreneurship.

Monday's meeting included a conference call with Sheila Stearns, commissioner of Higher Education, and Mary Moe, deputy commissioner for two-year education.

Under citizen comments, Stearns said she and Moe found the minutes and subsequent newspaper story about a special Aug. 24 FVCC board meeting "disconcerting." The meeting was held to approve a draft memo form community colleges raising concerns about some of nine strategies in a resolution under consideration by the Board of Regents two days later.

The initiatives were developed with planning money from the Lumina Foundation to develop ways to grow college graduates in Montana. Karas and FVCC trustees took issue with Moe's recommendation to regents noting some concern with the process but saying "everyone appears to be supportive of the initiatives in the resolution."

The memo, developed by all three of Montana's community colleges, urged the Board of Regents to hold off on the resolution until local trustees could discuss the financial and other ramifications of the strategies. Regents subsequently approved the resolution and Moe then submitted a second grant request asking for implementation money from the Lumina Foundation.

Stearns reviewed meetings where college representatives had input into the planning process. She said the college should have invited a representative to answer questions at the Aug. 24 meeting.

Moe and Regent Lynn Hamilton had attended a meeting with FVCC trustees in July where trustees and Karas raised issues about the strategies such as losing courses the community needs to eliminate duplication statewide and losing control of education funded with local dollars.

Moe told trustees that this was the third time she had read minutes that "mischaracterized what I do." She did not specify which statements offended her in the minutes or the newspaper article.

Stearns said that Montana's grant application was well-received by the Lumina Foundation. She said officials said the proposal by Moe was "particularly well-written and well-organized." Montana submitted the only proposal targeting two-year education for producing more degrees.

Stearns said the foundation should make a decision on the grant in about a month.

"I already consider it a great success, even if we don't get it," she said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at [email protected].