County Executive Steuart Pittman proposed the fiscal year 2020 budget to the county council on May 1.

Part of this budget deals directly with the college, which requested $4 million total.

However, Pittman only approved $3 million of this.

“We are developing a plan to manage the reduction from the county that allows us to maintain our compensation pool at 3 percent, but we will not know the final rate until the budget is approved by the County Council in June,” President Dawn Lindsay said.

However, the county will still fund the new Health and Life Science building and other construction projects.

“We are pleased that the Dragun building renovation and addition and the Florestano renovation projects appear in the county’s capital budget for the first time,” Lindsay said.  “Dragun was delayed four years to FY 2025 and Florestano was delayed one year, to … 2023.  We are developing a strategy to manage the change in the timing of these two projects.”

Officials from the college will present their budget request to the council on May 9 and they have until June 15 to approve it.

Despite the $1 million rejection from the county, Vice President of Learning Resources Management Melissa Beardmore said she is happy with the progress AACC is making with the county.

“I would say that given all of the county’s needs we are pleased that the county executive was able to fund our operating and capital budgets at the level we saw [on May 1],” Beardmore said.