Northwest College to issue $400,000 in room and board refunds

Posted 3/26/20

With campus facilities closed for the rest of the spring semester Northwest College is refunding its students an estimated $395,000 worth of prorated housing fees and meal plans. The college closed …

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Northwest College to issue $400,000 in room and board refunds

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With campus facilities closed for the rest of the spring semester Northwest College is refunding its students an estimated $395,000 worth of prorated housing fees and meal plans. The college closed all campus locations, including student housing facilities, on March 15 as part of efforts to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.

At a special Monday meeting, the NWC Board of Trustees voted unanimously to authorize the room and board refunds for the rest of the semester.

“We didn’t want anyone to be homeless as a result of the decision to close the residence halls,” said NWC President Stefani Hicswa.

The college is making arrangements for students who have nowhere safe to go — mostly international students — while the rest have moved out or are in the process of doing so. However, many students had paid for their food and housing through the entire semester and didn’t have any money left while waiting for refunds.

“The college was getting a number of calls and emails from students who needed the refunds urgently because they had been displaced and needed to be able to pay for housing and food,” NWC Board President Dusty Spomer said in an email.

The resolution approving the refunds was first discussed at an emergency board meeting held Thursday, without public notice, then finalized on Monday (see related story below).

The Wyoming Legislature recently voted to provide all seven community colleges with operational funding — including a one-time $600,000 appropriation for Northwest College.

The NWC resolution notes this funding could be used to cover the expense of the refunds, if NWC doesn’t receive an insurance claim or other federal or state support.

Trustee John Housel said a number of students were growing “restless” about whether they’d receive refunds or not; he said the college was concerned that students wouldn’t return to NWC in the fall.

“It all reflected poorly and could certainly affect, possibly on a permanent basis, the reputation of the college,” Housel said.

There was a pressing need to try to maintain that reputation as the college saw a slight improvement in enrollment in the spring semester — a 2% increase — right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Students were taking fewer credits, so the total credit hours enrolled fell by 4%, but it was a small gain for the college, which has been struggling with enrollment.

NWC was also continuing to be strong on keeping, graduating, and transferring its students. Of full-time, first-time, degree-seeking students starting in fall 2018, 65% were enrolled at NWC in fall 2019. This retention rate was the highest in the state and one of the highest in the college’s history. The most recent completion rate at NWC for the fall 2016 was 44%, which is considerably higher than the national average for two-year public institutions.

At the last regular board meeting on March 9, Spomer said these metrics were often overlooked and focusing solely on enrollment was like a doctor only looking at weight but not looking at improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure.

“We’re ignoring some of these very impressive statistics in our organization,” he said.

At Monday’s special meeting, Rachel Hanan, associate professor of English, asked if the college expected to recoup any of the expense of the refunds, as there would be savings from not delivering housing and meal services through the end of the semester. Spomer told Hanan it was too early to tell where there might be savings.

Spomer said the meal services involve contracts with fixed costs. According to minutes from Thursday’s meeting, the college is in negotiations with the food provider to find savings there.

Hicswa pointed out that with cancellation of travel and events, the college was also saving money.

According to the resolution, estimated refunds for residence halls were $185,000, and meal plan refunds were estimated at $210,000.

Meanwhile, NWC officials plan to resume classes in alternative and mostly online formats on Monday, April 6.

“... We will continue to work very hard to ensure that our students have what they need to finish online and on time, with limited incompletes and no withdrawals,” Hicswa said in a Tuesday message to staff. “Our campus buildings may be closed to the public, but we are open digitally to all.”

 

NWC board holds meeting without public notice

When the Northwest College Board of Trustees held an emergency meeting last week, it made no attempt to notify the public, in violation of Wyoming’s open meetings laws.

Board President Dusty Spomer took responsibility for what he said was an unintentional oversight and that there was never any attempt to hide anything from the public.

“I made a mistake,” Spomer said.

The meeting was called to authorize college officials to issue prorated refunds for student housing fees and meal plans, since the residence halls and apartments have closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spomer said a discussion with NWC President Stefani Hicswa about refunds began on March 15, the same day as the initial closures were announced. Students wanted to know if and when they’d receive prorated refunds for the housing and meal plans they paid for through the end of the semester.

The initial plan was for the board to hold a special meeting on Monday, March 23. Spomer said the board intended to notify the public of that meeting, but by Thursday afternoon, the urgency of the situation led to a conclusion an emergency meeting would need to be called immediately to expedite the refund process.

“Some of this was unfolding by the hour,” he said.

Spomer said he reviewed the college’s policies on special and emergency board meetings, which align with Wyoming’s open meetings laws. The policies and state law specifically require the college to make a “reasonable effort” to offer public notice, but Spomer said he “determined there was no time to notify the public” of the 7 p.m. Thursday meeting.

Bruce Moats, a Cheyenne attorney with an expertise in Wyoming’s open meetings and public records laws, said an emergency meeting “doesn’t excuse failure to notice when you can reasonably do so.”

The public “should get the same amount of notice that the governing body members got,” Moats said in an interview, asking, “Why can’t they notify [the public] at the same time they have to notify [the body]?”

Spomer said in the haste of calling the meeting, he overlooked the requirement. He said he never consulted with college attorneys and also never thought about contacting the media prior to the meeting.

“I just didn’t think to call the newspaper,” he said.

No public notice of the emergency meeting was given until 1:20 p.m. Friday.

The Park County Commission also had a notification snafu of its own last week, when an emailing error led to media members — including the Tribune — not receiving notice of an emergency meeting on Wednesday morning.

By law and policy, all action taken at an emergency meeting is temporary. To become permanent, the action must then be revisited and acted upon in an open public meeting held within 48 hours of the initial meeting.

Spomer said he was advised by the college attorney that the weekend wouldn’t count toward that 48-hours deadline, and they went ahead with a special meeting Monday to make the action permanent and fulfill that requirement. At that meeting, Spomer read the minutes from the initial meeting and voted for the resolution.

Speaking prior to Monday’s meeting, Trustee John Housel confirmed the lack of public notice was unintentional.

“In the future, I will make every effort to not let it happen again,” he said.

(Tribune Editor CJ Baker contributed reporting.)

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