Flathead Valley Community College President Jane Karas told the board of trustees Monday that Swank Enterprises expects to complete the new nursing and health sciences building on schedule in March.

“It’s a little bit under budget which we are very happy to hear and hoping it remains that way,” Karas said. “We are looking at moving all the programs in, we hope, the first week in April, which is spring break when the students won’t be here.”

She said the college expects to schedule a grand opening celebration and ribbon cutting in the first week in May.

In other positive news, finance and audit committee member trustee Tom Harding reported that the college finished the quarter ending Dec. 31 in a strong financial position. He said Chuck Jensen, vice president of administration and finance, characterized revenues as strong and expenses “on track.”

He said some issues came up at a committee meeting with three policies that trustees had been scheduled to review, leading to postponement until later. Those policies governed travel, transportation, official travel, planning and research and the budget system.

Under the agenda item on the quarterly budget report, Karas confirmed Harding’s report that the college was in good shape after half a year.

“We’ll wait until the third week to see where we are with tuition, although it looks like we will be a little better than we projected,” she said. “Our expenses are on track unless we have any really cold weather or any big snowstorms between now and the third quarter.”

In the only action item, trustees voted to change the regular board meeting from April 22 to April 29. Karas said the usual date conflicted with an American Association of Community Colleges meeting that she and a number of other staffers would attend.

Karas also gave an update on activities since the beginning of the legislative session. Staffers, two students and others testified Jan. 24 in favor of House Bill 2, the state budget bill containing the college’s funding formula.

Karas told trustees that other presentations ran long, so the three community colleges had less time than expected.

“I think we were very concise and to the point,” she said. “I think at that point in the day, they appreciated our brevity. We managed to get everything covered.”

Karas said she testified earlier in the session on House Bill 25, a bill providing “a slight tweak to the funding formula” which all three community colleges support. It passed through the house on its second reading and moved into the senate.

According to Karas, Rep. Randy Brodehl, R-Kalispell, agreed to carry a bill to clarify the election statutes governing the last day to file to run for a trustee position.

A conflict developed after school district statutes were changed in 1999 but did not address the community college statutes.

“The community college statute probably should have been changed for consistency,” she said. “Sometimes when statutes are changed, people don’t always understand what other statutes are tied to those.”

She called it a housecleaning bill now in the drafting stage. As the statutes now stand, people can file after the date that the college must have its ballots printed.

Karas also reported on a table-top training exercise at FVCC during its Jan. 18 in-service day. She said the exercise involved a gunman on campus.

“It was a great experience,” she said. “We had support from both the Kalispell Police Department and fire department who were here working with us.”

Trustees also heard presentations on the college’s building and physical therapist assistant programs. Colleen Unterreiner, director of institutional advancement, provided an annual report on the college’s foundation activities.

“It’s been a tremendous year for the foundation,” she said.

According to Unterreiner, the gains came from an increase in donors, what they gave and a favorable market which provided a 9 percent return on investments.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.

Successes included:

• Raising $1.3 million for the nursing and health building match.

• Administering a record of more than $500,000 in scholarships with $360,000 raised internally through annual giving for scholarships. The rest were scholarships brought by students to the school and administered by the foundation.

• Festival of Flavors netting revenues of $100,000, an increase of 42 percent.

• Raising $90,000 from the annual fund drive.

Unterreiner said students played a key role in helping the foundation. They motivated donors by showing up at events and telling their stories.

“Our endowment went over the $5 million mark, which is pretty amazing,” she said.   

Unterreiner said the foundation received a very large gift for the endowment at the end of the year from the estate of Thain and Fay White. She did not reveal the amount and was unavailable for comment on Tuesday.

“Quite a bit of that came in as cash,” she said. “We’re working right now with leadership here at the college to decide what to do with that.”

Unterreiner said she would be working and sharing with the trustees “what that kind of money can do for us as we look to the future.”

She said that the Whites were sheep ranchers in the Dayton area and that Fay, originally from Canada, was an annual donor to the college. She said Thain and Fay had no children together.

 Unterreiner discovered that Fay began coming to the Senior Fridays (now Senior Institute) back in 2007 and took travel-related courses.

“Her brother said she really enjoyed Senior Fridays,” Unterreiner said. “So she was a student in our system. It’s wonderful to think about her and her gift to the college.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.