DANVILLE — School leaders say the addition of scheduling software will allow Danville Area Community College staff to continue to “do more with less.”

Trustees approved the $52,535 in software following the recommendation Tuesday of DACC’s Scheduling Software Committee and President Alice Jacobs.

The agreement, with Dean Evans and Associates, includes an annual maintenance fee of $7,380. The software is called Event Management Systems Campus Suite.

“This is an awful lot of money to be spending,” said trustee John Halloran prior to joining unanimous support for the purchase, “but the deans spend a lot of time on scheduling. If we don’t do this now we’ll have to do it in the future.”

He was referring to the advancing enrollment rate, which his risen significantly in the past five years with expectations of more growth this fall.

DACC chief financial officer Gail Morrison, who headed the committee, said the software would allow better use of facilities and help avoid scheduling conflicts on the swelling campus. She said a nine-person committee formed last year researched the new system.

“A great deal of work was done prior to making the recommendation,” she said. “This is needed so we can more efficiently schedule the classrooms and space.”

Morrison said college officials are still working out details of the system’s management, and the work would likely be a “group effort. I’m not sure there will just be one main person.”

Jacobs said the purchase will be made with funds set aside for some $1.7 million in upgrades to the college’s management information system.

Liberal arts jumps

Liberal Arts Dean Penny McConnell reported the college’s rise in general enrollment can easily be tracked through her department because all disciplines require at least basic English courses.

“There’s not one degree you can take and get it without English,” she said.

She said her division last saw a jump in credit hours last year 20,614 compared to 16,850 the year prior, many of those extra hours credited to last year’s record growth in the Technology Center amid expanded class offerings.

“It’s been quite a year,” McConnell said. “Online is growing, people are interested more and more, and students are clamoring for those classes.”

Some 75 percent of DACC teachers teach at least one class online, she said, with about 20 percent of classes offered in that form. In addition, dual-enrollment classes offered through country high schools are seeing growth — and being passed by 91 percent of students.

Likewise, said McConnell, the college library had also seen an explosion in use.

Library database searches went up to nearly 190,000 compared to around 115,000 last year.

Cash flow woe

“We don’t anticipate that situation changing anytime soon,” said President Alice Jacobs before requesting trustee authorization to permit inter-fund loans in the coming fiscal year.

She was describing the state’s funding crisis, which has left DACC and other Illinois schools waiting for money promised months earlier. For DACC, that total is around $1 million. For District 118, the number has hovered near $5 million for months.

“Due to the continued delay in processing payments by the state of Illinois, the college’s special revenue bonds are continuing to experience a negative cash balance,” Jacobs reported to the board.

The inter-fund borrowing allows the college to shift money to individual funds to reflect a positive balance, the money replaced when funding is received.

Officials said the move has become an annual and expected request.