BENTONVILLE — Carrying a gun on NorthWest Arkansas Community College's main campus or any of its other locations will be prohibited for at least another year.

The Board of Trustees voted 6-1 at its meeting Monday to maintain that policy. Todd Schwartz was the lone board trustee who voted against the recommendation made by the administration. Mike Shupe, Mauricio Herrera, Joe Spivey, Daniel Shewmaker, Scott Grigsby and Geovanny Sarmiento voted for it. Amy Forrest was absent. The board chairman, Ric Clifford, votes only when a tie-breaker is necessary.

Act 226, approved by the Legislature last year, allows full-time employees who are licensed to carry concealed weapons to carry a gun on the campuses of Arkansas' universities and colleges unless the boards that govern those institutions agree to opt out of the legislation. The law requires each institution to declare its intent to opt out each year, which each of them did in 2013.

Schwartz also was the only board trustee to vote against opting out when the college's board considered the proposal last year.

"I voted with my heart," Schwartz said after the meeting. "There are so many different reasons."

He said after last year's vote on the matter, he received 103 email messages about it. All but three of the messages supported his stance.

Evelyn Jorgenson, college president, moderated a public forum on the issue last month. A few staff members asked at that forum whether the college at least could allow them to keep guns in their cars because they would like to have them for protection when they went home at night.

Ethan Beckcom, director of emergency and risk management, said the college consulted with the attorney general's office about that.

"It was determined it was all or nothing, the way the vote had to be taken," Jorgenson said.

The administration's recommendation was endorsed by the college's Faculty Senate president, Staff Council president and Student Government Association president.

In other business, the board unanimously approved the college's budget for fiscal 2014. The balanced budget of $41.1 million represents a spending cut of $1.2 million from the current fiscal year. The fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30.

The budget calls for no increases in either tuition or student fees, the first time the college has gone without any such increases since 2008. Officials built the budget on the assumption enrollment will decrease by 3 percent next year.

Faculty members will receive their usual step increases, which are 1 percent plus $300. Non-academic staff members will receive a 1 percent cost of living increase.

That raise was made possible by unexpectedly good news on the revenue front: The amount the college receives from its local millage tax increased $358,128, or 6.3 percent.

"We initially assumed a very modest increase in millage, and we got 10 times that much," said Debi Buckley, chief financial officer.

The college did not cut services to students, Buckley said. Instead it found other ways to trim expenses.

One was by implementing new software that allows students to pay their costs online, which saved the college thousands in postage and allowed it to leave unfilled a position in the finance department. The college also cut travel expenses, upgraded computers instead of replacing them, and got 11 employees to accept a retirement incentive that will allow the college to fill their positions with others at lower salaries, Buckley said.

"Everyone worked very, very hard on this budget," Jorgenson said. "It's been a good team effort."

NW News on 04/15/2014