One of the battle lines drawn in the upcoming budget fight is over community college funding.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver wants the state to give community colleges an increase in funds over last year. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed giving them the same amount that they got last year.

The Faculty Council of Community Colleges, the governing body of all the community colleges in the state, agrees with Mr. Silver, while thanking Mr. Cuomo for not cutting them.

“We thank the governor for his continued support of higher education in this crucial time,” said Tina Good, the council's president. “After years of underfunding, we are operating as lean as possible even while meeting the needs of more students than ever before. Maintaining open access, affordability, and academic excellence is an overwhelming challenge."

The council wants the state to increase its funding until it's funding 40 percent of the schools, as it's supposed to. The state isn't doing that right now at Jefferson Community College in Watertown.

The other 60 percent is paid by tuition and the counties.

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer