RVCC 2019 NECHE Self-Study

een, or are being resolved. A CCSNH task force was assigned to create practices focusing
on accurate and honest budgeting. As a result of the LBA, CCSNH and RVCC are
completing a procedural overhaul, and improving many of our processes. The System
Office prepares RVCC’s Financial Statements in accordance with GAAP and our audit is
completed by an external auditor in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards
adopted by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Grants & Additional Fundraising
While grant funding only accounts for 6%, on average, of our total revenue, these monies
are vital to the work we do with students. Over the past three fiscal years, our largest
continuous grant, Work Ready NH accounted for the following revenue: $164,000 (FY16);
$172,000(FY17); and $173,000 (FY18). Another major grant, the Carl D. Perkins Grant,
accounted for: $8000 (FY16); $40,000 (FY17); and $91,000 (FY18). During this
accreditation period, we also participated in a Federal Grant with the US Department of
Labor Employment and Training Administration for the H1B Grant related to our Advanced
Manufacturing program. The grant was awarded in FY13 for $4.9 million and was
extended through April of FY17. The majority of the spending for this grant was made in
FY17 with purchases of $1.2 million. During FY16 and FY17, in preparation for the opening
of the Lebanon Academic Center, RVCC received funding from the City of Lebanon as a
HUD Pass-thru in the amount of $475,000 and from the Northern Borders Regional
Commission in the amount of $150,000. These funds were expended as capital
improvements and appear in reporting as capital expenditures.
RVCC has not actively participated in fundraising since 2015. Fundraising efforts during
2013-2015 focused on increasing monies for scholarships. These scholarships have been
implemented over the past few years as the Envisioning a Brighter Future Scholarship (for
new and returning students). With CCSNH Foundation’s new Chief Advancement Officer,
we look forward to renewed fundraising efforts.
Appraisal of Resources
Financial Resources
Although RVCC still needs to diversify revenue resources and find new opportunities for
tailoring expenses, over the past two years we have gone from a college community that
did not even employ a Business Affairs Officer to a college that not only employs a full time
BAO, but receives financial briefings on a regular basis, and exhibits transparency as a
cornerstone of the financial processes. Potential future next-steps would be to integrate
salary and benefits information into our financial system, Banner. Currently, budgeting for
roughly 78% of the total RVCC budget is a manual process completed outside of the
accounting system in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. As a system of multiple colleges all
working together, using Microsoft Excel to calculate the majority of the budget is an
example of not having sufficient reporting tools to complete tasks in a timely and efficient
manner. What should take mere minutes becomes much more cumbersome as a result of
having to get information from the payroll system and the budgeting system separately.
In most organizations of this size, this is not a manual process. When comparing our
financial resources, RVCC and the CCSNH System rely heavily on paper processes, while
other colleges and academic institutions have often eliminated many of these processes
due to the technological advances of a fully integrated accounting system or even an
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