Onondaga County lawmakers approved the county's share of the Onondaga Community College's operating and capital budgets yesterday. But, the two- year school didn't get quite what it asked for.
Lawmakers approved $9.5 million dollars for operation costs, and $4.3 million dollars for capital expenses for OCC. Both numbers were less than the school wanted. Republican Pat Kilmartin says the county has to be very careful with spending, and notes the capital budget will still cover a lot of items.
"Those dollars will be allocated for infrastructure costs, for boilers, for HVAC, for safety issues, for sidewalks on campus for the first time in 50 years, for technology improvements to make sure the campus is wireless," said Kilmartin.
The capital budget will also fund two new turf fields on campus. "They've had baseball programs for decades at the college, but they've never had fields on campus. These are fields that'll be used by the community, by the students, for intramurals, for the college teams themselves. And they'll be multi-use fields, not only for baseball and softball, but for lacrosse and football and all kinds of sports," said Kilmartin.
The $9.5 million dollars for the OCC operating budget was $200,000 less than the school asked for, but keeps spending on par with last year. Lawmakers say difficult budget times were the reasons for amounts approved.
