$2.6 Million Needed for King’s Spring 2023 Budget
Photo taken from https://www.tkc.edu/donate/
Dr. Kimberly Reeve informed the student body that The King’s College has “a funding gap of approximately $2.6 million” during the community update following the Public Reading of Scripture on Jan. 30.
“That's what we need… to finish the end of this semester well,” Reeve said.
This exact number of needed funds was announced one week after a series of previously announced budget cuts went into effect for the Spring 2023 semester.
“It's due primarily to timing of funding,” Reeve explained. “If we can sell DeVos, that will free up a million dollars approximately.” The school is considering two possible contracts for the building as of the community update announcement.
“The second thing that we are waiting on is that our CFO has applied for employee retention credits as part of all of the COVID funding,” Reeve said. “That is over $1.5 million. Waiting on that money… is expected to be at least six months. That's the gap that we find ourselves in.”
At the beginning of the community update meeting, Christian Formation intern Moses Kazanjian debriefed the annual King’s Day of Service held on Jan 28. Student Body President Mattilyn Winburn then went over the roster of school events for the next two weeks before Reeve made the financial announcement.
Reeve also updated the student body on the search for a new president. “We as a committee have screened 29 candidates,” she said, “and we ended up interviewing five of those. We recommended three of the five to the board of trustees… We continue to update those candidates on where things are at with King’s.”
Two days later, on Wednesday, Feb. 1, multiple emails regarding the current financial situation were sent out to the larger network of the King’s community.
The February 2023 Parents Newsletter gave a summary of recent events and announcements. “This academic year, King’s has been caught in the perfect storm of a slow, post-COVID-19 recovery, an economic downturn, and rising interest rates which have complicated the sale of our DeVos building,” the email read. “Because of these factors, King’s, like many other small colleges and universities, is experiencing a financial strain.” The email also included an invitation to a parent’s virtual prayer meeting.
An email sent to King’s alumni highlighted rising admissions numbers for the next school year, a “considerable growth” in the Kings’ donor base and a potential partnership with a “significant Christian university” that would “carry us into the future and would get us out of the historic cycle of financial ups and downs faced by many small colleges like ours.”
“These discussions will take time, and that is a luxury we do not have,” the email read. “Please prayerfully consider making a one-time donation to help us meet this immediate need.”
A postscript on the email asked alumni to “donate by February 15th, 2023 to help ensure that we meet our immediate financial needs.”
Suggested one-time donation amounts ranged from $250 to “support a student worker for two weeks” to $2,500 to “underwrite a portion of our faculty salaries for a month.” The school also updated its official donation webpage with the new suggestions.
“As a student worker, I think that donations should be geared towards wherever King’s needs it most,” said Student Services representative Nicholas Rommel. “I'm willing personally to sacrifice some of those hours and that money for the sake of the school, but I'm very conscientious of my other colleagues who are in need of those hours and need that money so that they can actually afford living in New York City… The current adjustments that have been made already across the board, whether it was Student Union hours or Student Services hours, are sufficient for the time being.”
King’s alumnus Christopher Ross stated in a comment on Dr. Anthony Bradley’s LinkedIn post regarding the alumni email that the “Alumni Executive Committee is committing to match the first $7,500 in gifts raised this week” as of Thursday, Feb. 2.
“One of the best things that current students can do is to speak positively about what the plan is and where we're headed with the fight to keep King’s and to encourage new and prospective students to join in that fight,” said Jeremy Story, a member of the Parents Advisory Council and Presidential Search Committee. “Current students have an incredibly essential role in casting a high level of vision for King’s and where we're headed now.”
“Because there's only a few hundred of you, you have the opportunity to literally sway the future of the college,” Story continued. “My hope is that the parents, the council, the administrators, the professors, everybody we can, let's all step up. Let's paint a vision for how we're going to overcome these obstacles and be even stronger than we were before.”
Melinda Huspen is the Managing Editor of the Empire State Tribune. She is a junior at The King’s College studying Journalism, Culture and Society.