KOLKHORST RECOMMENDS AUDIT FOR BLINN COLLEGE

  

After a bill that will allocate more money to the Blinn College Bryan campus, Senator Lois Kolkhorst has recommended Blinn officials to obtain a financial audit.

A bill by Rep. John Raney would require Blinn to allocate its funding based on student contact hours, and with the Bryan campus having the largest enrollment, that campus would receive largest amount of state funding.

Raney believes since 70% of the students attend the Bryan campus, that the majority of the funding should go there, and believes that the Brenham campus should be self-supporting, and not use money allocated for the Bryan campus, believing that it should be funded with “contact hours” instead of splitting the money equally.

Blinn has received 26.9 million dollars in the last fiscal year ending last August, which for the Bryan campus, would mean a total for the spring semester to be almost $2.3 million dollars.

Contact hours on the Brenham campus are expected to be about $490,000 hours.

Kolkhorst noted that Washington County uses property taxes specified for Blinn College’s operations, so a balance needs to be established there.

She goes on to say that the Brenham campus needs attention, with hundreds of students are turned away from the school due to lack of housing.

There are also rumors in the legislature that would exclude Waller County from Blinn’s service area. Kolkhorst is hoping that Blinn leadership will make all the proper decisions.