ALPENA — Alpena Community College will receive $5.77 million in appropriations from the state this fiscal year, college President Don MacMaster said on Wednesday.

That is $65,000 more than the college received last year.

“We can live with the appropriation we received, and we’re grateful for it,” MacMaster said. “We wish that there had been more dollars, but we understand the environment that the Legislature and Gov. (Gretchen) Whitmer are working in.”

Whitmer initially sought a 3% increase in appropriations for colleges when she proposed her budget in March.

ACC knew that was too high, so officials projected a 1.5% increase in its 2019-20 budget.

The college received word after the state budget was signed Monday that its appropriation is a 1.15% increase.

MacMaster said that’s about a $19,000 difference.

“For us, that’s an absorbable number, especially in light of our enrollment in the fall was about 7% higher than we had projected,” MacMaster said. “So revenue there offsets the slight decrease in what we projected compared to what we got.”

The college didn’t know what it was going to get this summer when it completed its budget while lawmakers and Whitmer continued negotiations on the state budget. So, like all schools, it had to project what might come.

The $5.77 million is a big piece of the college’s budget, so finally knowing a number is significant. MacMaster said the level of uncertainty about what it would get when was a concern.

The state appropriations are for college operations and management.

Whitmer issued 147 line vetoes to the state budget, but MacMaster thinks none of those affected the community college budget. Whitmer has offered to continue negotiating with lawmakers and the state budget could yet be changed.

The college is keeping an eye on that.

“We think there will be a supplemental bill where some of the things that were line-item vetoed by the governor are priorities for the (state) House and the Senate, particularly the Republican side,” MacMaster said. “And, plus, the big unknown is roads, and so we expect there will be a supplemental bill sometime in the first six months of this fiscal year where a number of these items will be deliberated.”

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.