New law stops PCC from inflating enrollment estimates

Arizona has a new law that will stop Pima Community College from using inflated enrollment estimates to stay within its state spending limit.

House Bill 1322, signed into law Thursday by Governor Doug Ducey, forces community colleges to use an average of actual enrollment instead of estimates to calculate their spending caps.

A college’s spending limit, separate from its budget, restricts the amount of local revenue such as taxes that can legally be spent each year. It does not limit how other revenue, such as tuition dollars, can be spent.

The new law also allows community colleges to count a student taking career and technical training as 1.3 students when calculating spending limits, since such programs often are more expensive to operate.

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And it permits colleges to exempt certain types of revenue — such as funding from community business partners — from the spending limit calculations.

Ducey spokeswoman Annie Dockendorff said the new law will “ensure our community colleges are producing a quality workforce that meets the needs of industry.”

A PCC news release said the changes will enhance the school’s ability to train workers for jobs in “high-skill, high-wage technical fields.”

Under the previous law, PCC regularly overestimated its enrollment by 30 to 40 percent, which kept its spending limit artificially high as the school’s enrollment plunged over the past five years.