Lane Community College approves budget plan to address $4 million deficit

Students in Lane Community College’s Health Information Management and Criminal Justice programs are facing the first disruption as the college moves to close a roughly $4 million budget gap. The board approved the Budget Mitigation Plan at a special meeting, putting Lane into active cuts that include two associate degree programs, 22 position reductions and changes to support services.

The impact reaches beyond the classroom. The plan also includes deeper changes in operations, with earlier proposals calling for the closure of the printing and graphics department and reductions in tutoring and library staffing. More than half of the reductions are expected to come from operations, including vacant positions, management consolidation and restructuring, while about $1 million is set to come from support services such as the dental and health clinics, the library and tutoring.

For current students, the most immediate consequences are program continuity and transfer plans. Lane said the criminal justice program’s accreditor has already approved a closure plan with teach-out options effective spring 2027. The college is still working on a closure plan for Health Information Management, leaving students in that program with less certainty about how far they can go before the curriculum changes around them.

The budget fight is not just a one-year correction. Lane Community College Board Policy BP 6230 requires an unrestricted General Fund Ending Fund Balance of at least 10% of total expenditures and transfers. If reserves fall to 9% or lower, the college must adopt a plan to get back to 10% within three years. In its Nov. 7, 2025 budget message, the college said it had not met that reserve target since FY2016, when the ending fund balance last reached 15.74%.

That same budget message warned that FY2026 was projected to overspend by about $550,000 and said the Higher Education Coordinating Commission had indicated Lane’s share of state funding could fall by up to 5%, or roughly $2.4 million a year. With salaries and benefits accounting for about 85% of the general fund budget, administrators have been forced to look at staffing, services and academic offerings all at once.

The stakes go beyond the Eugene campus. Lane says it serves more than 15,000 students a year at six locations across Lane County and online, and that its students and alumni support more than 8,900 local jobs and generate more than $675 million in local economic impact. Students, faculty and staff urged the board on April 3 to keep the programs alive, but the approved plan shows the college is now moving from debate to implementation, with local workforce training in healthcare and law enforcement among the areas most exposed.