LUMBERTON — The Robeson Community College board of trustees rewarded its president with a three-year contract extension Monday.

“She’s done a wonderful job for us,” board Chairman Sammy Cox said.

Kimberly Gold had one year left on her current contract. Her new contract will expire June 30, 2022.

The RCC board cannot adjust Gold’s salary. That must be done by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction based on the department’s tiered salary structure for college presidents. The tiered pay system is based on the number of students at each campus. The more students at a campus, the more the president gets paid.

RCC’s full-time equivalent student body numbered 2,763 and the budgeted president’s salary was $148,659, according to the state DPI’s Fiscal Year 2017‐18 State Aid Allocations and Budget Policies report from the State Board of Community Colleges’ Division of Finance and Operations that was released Aug. 18, 2017.

Cox said the trustees review a president’s performance every June. The contract extension was the result of positive reviews and Gold’s performance since she came to the campus.

The State Board of Community Colleges confirmed Gold’s appointment as RCC’s fifth president in October 2015. Gold filled a vacancy created when Pamela Hilbert retired in June 2015. Gold came to RCC from Isothermal Community College in Spindale, where she was executive vice president and chief academic officer. She had worked at Isothermal, which serves Rutherford and Polk counties, since 1995.

The trustees also voted Monday to ask the county government to include $3 million for RCC when it formulates its fiscal year 2018-19 budget. This is an increase from the $2.6 million the campus requested for the current fiscal year

The trustees voted to write off $490,668 in uncollected money. The debt ranges from the fall of 2005 until the summer of 2013.

The losses are the result of students who did not finish at least 60 percent of a semester and still owed money to RCC, financial aid that did not cover all charges, students who dropped out of school after the first day of class but still showed up on the campus’ financial records as 25 percent for tuition and 100 percent for fees, and other financial “no shows,” as when an instructor dropped a student and the student still owed tuition and/or fees.

The college will continue trying to collect the unpaid money, said Tami George, vice president of Business Services. In the meantime, the uncollected money will not harm the campus’ finances.

The campus is required to report as uncollected any money that has not be paid on an existing account for at least one year and is at least 3 years old, Gold said. Writing off the debt is a housekeeping procedure.

The trustees were introduced to the winner of the Academic Excellence Award, Jalen Oxendine, a Maxton resident and an Early College High School student. Oxendine has a grade-point average of 4.0 and plans to purse a medical degree at East Carolina University after he receives his undergraduate degree at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

“I am grateful for the recognition,” Oxendine said.

Board members heard that RCC is operating six emergency medical technician classes and two paramedic classes. The classes have 116 students between them, seven of whom will graduate in May with an associate’s degree in Emergency Medical Science, said Channing Jones, vice president of Workforce Development and Continuing Education.

Jones also told the trustees that 20 people are enrolled in the Basic EMS class at UNCP. The students are doing well and are able to quickly grasp the presented material, he said.

The instructor is Ross Masters, a one-time RCC student and graduate of the campus’ EMS program. Masters went on to work as an EMT and is now pursuing a medical degree.

Masters said he went to class with some of the people he now is teaching.

“I enjoyed taking classes at RCC, and I enjoy teaching,” Masters said.

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T.C. Hunter

Managing editor

Reach T.C. Hunter by calling 910-816-1974 or via email at [email protected]