House OKs $500K budget for NMC

The House of Representatives has approved a $500,000 supplemental budget for the Northern Marianas College.

The urgent appropriation is needed to allow the financially distressed community college to offer a summer class and to help expand its nursing program.

The lower chamber, during its session on May 25, approved House Bill 14-335, which aims to appropriate $208,000 for NMC’s summer program and $310,000 for nursing expansion. The bill now goes to the Senate for similar passage.

“The nursing program funding need is very urgent. This is the program that we should really be nurturing,” said minority leader Arnold I. Palacios, who authored the bill.

Palacios said the funds would come from the lapsed 2004 Tobacco Control Fund.

He said the college has also asked for the 30 percent early retirement payment for its retiring personnel. This request, he said, can be acted on at a later time.

“The summer program and the nursing program have more urgent needs. As for the retirement, it still gives us an ample time to act on that,” said Palacios.

NMC president Antonio Guerrero said earlier that the NMC Board of Regents and administration were compelled to seek the government’s help “after the students pleaded their case” to college officials.

College officials had previously planned to cancel the summer classes but this would have caused students to graduate a semester late.

NMC School of Nursing chair Lois Gage had disclosed that the school’s Maternal and Child Health Nursing class this summer had to be cancelled due to a lack of instructor.

Because nursing courses must be taken in sequence, any delay in the students’ completion of one class will affect the rest of the requirements.

She attributed the problem to the low salary rates being offered by the college for adjunct faculty.

Part-time teachers, which are needed to teach the nursing class, are paid between $500 and $700 per credit hour, depending on the teacher’s educational background.

With the course having eight credit hours, an instructor with a master’s degree would get paid a total of $5,600, while a teacher with a bachelor’s degree would receive $4,000.

Gage said that this compensation level is barely enough, as the nursing class actually requires an instructor to be with the students not only eight hours, but 36 hours.

Meantime, NMC earlier asked for nearly $1 million for the expansion of its nursing program.

At present, the program could accommodate only 20 new students at the start of the fall semester.

It said that some $326,000 would be spent on the construction and renovation of the School of Nursing facilities.

Additional funds would be needed to increase its enrollment and accommodate international students into the program.

Based on the proposal, $439,400 of the requested amount will go to the hiring of five new instructors, which would allow the School of Nursing to accept 50 additional students.

The nursing school has a policy of limiting each class to 10 students per instructor.

NMC has set the maximum salary for each instructor at $45,000 yearly, projecting to spend $25,000 for the recruitment and relocation of the five new teachers and $66,375 for their combined benefits.