by LEAH KEMPLE
News Editor
Budget cuts have been affecting the Harmon College of Business and Professional Studies in varying ways. Some departments have been struggling while others came out completely unscathed.
The college is made up of business and professional departments including the Department of Economics and Finance, Department of Management, aviation and the police academy. While the aviation department has been putting projects on hold, the police academy has been operating as usual.
The University of Central Missouri Aviation department has suffered from minor setbacks from the budget cuts. The program had to increase students’ flight fees that vary in price ranging from $30 to $300 by five percent for all flight training rates in order to offset the additional setbacks.
Executive Director of UCM Aviation and the Sky Haven Airport Tony Monetti said the cuts are impacting the program on a large scale.
“There are several capital projects primarily based on the UCM funding abilities such as the building of a new flight training facility. We’re also trying to get additional aircraft hangars as we expand our program, and we have to put those projects on hold for now until we receive additional contributions from donors, or the institutional budget situation potentially may improve,” Monetti said.
The UCM Police Academy hasn’t been affected by the budget cuts since the department is self-funded. The director of the police academy, Colin Comer, said the only aspects of the academy UCM covers for them is building maintenance.
“Being self-funded here is a double-edged sword. There are times when we think, ‘geez we wish we had the sure funding coming in so we didn’t have to worry about this or that’, but on the other hand when things like this come up, they don’t affect us,” Comer said.
The police academy gets most of its revenue from student tuition and grants. Comer said the academy has been applying and receiving grants for the past four years that have helped with equipment and building projects.
Comer said everything is going just fine, however other department chairs within the college have not responded on the issue.