News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Alpena Community College Vice President Nick Brege speaks to the board during a budget workshop prior to the regular meeting last Thursday.

ALPENA — The Fiscal Year 2027 budget for Alpena Community College is tighter than it has been the past two years. Along with the new budget comes a change in the Learning Resources Center Library staff’s organizational structure, where Director of the Learning Resources Center Lauren Mantlo’s position will be terminated.

LEARNING RESOURCES CENTER REORGANIZATION

MacMaster said in a comment after the meeting that the student success center in Van Lare Hall will be moving across the street to the library. He said that he expects there to be more traffic in the library due to that transition. A member of the college administration will be overseeing the library staff, which will include a new library technician position. MacMaster said that there is a possibility that the library technician will have a Master’s degree.

“As student support services are centralized and expanded within the library space, the operational needs of that environment will shift away from a standalone, director-led library toward a more integrated, student-services-focused operation,” MacMaster said in a statement in an email. “This shift will eliminate the library director administrative position and replace it with a new position that will focus on direct library services support to students.”

The combined library and student success center will be rebranded as the Student Success Resource Center.

“As part of this transition, the dean of students will provide oversight for these combined areas and will be relocated to an office within the library,” the email continues. “This change is intended to support stronger coordination, more immediate leadership presence, and closer alignment of services within the Student Success Resource Center.”

Also at the regular meeting, multiple members of the public spoke during public comment expressing their concerns about the reorganization of library staff.

ACC Faculty member Shawn Sexton spoke against the reorganization.

“My ask this evening is just to pause this process, pause Lauren’s termination, pause the reorganization until the board has an opportunity to maybe do a little digging on your own,” Sexton said.

“You’re replacing a Master’s level, young, enthusiastic, educated, experienced, employee whose single vision is to improve that library, with administration that is overworked, over job titled, and at the end of their career, and we’re adding to it a library technician,” Sexton said.

Bay College Librarian Muriel Carter and North Central Michigan College Librarian Kendra Lake both spoke during public comment about the importance of staffing a college library with a Master’s level professional librarian to the success of students.

Mantlo at the start of her public comment that she is being terminated from her position on June 30.

“I’d like to talk about what the impact I think I’ve had on the college in the time that I’ve been here,” Mantlo said.

She began working at ACC during the COVID-19 pandemic where she was part of the IT team making sure everyone stayed online. When she moved into a library position, she helped with a number of improvements, including filtering through old books and replacing the carpet.

She moved out of an office as a library technician and into the library itself in order to connect with students. Due to that change, Mantlo sees students right as they walk through the door and has formed connections with many of them.

“The retention aspect we have is so important, but it’s so hard to measure. I can tell you how many people walk through the library every day…but I can’t quantify how many people stay enrolled at Alpena Community College because of the work that we do.”

“I would like for you to consider pausing on this decision and think about the impact that the library has,” Mantlo said.

FY 2027 BUDGET WORKSHOP

ACC Vice President Nick Brege said at The Alpena Community College Board of Trustees regular meeting and budget workshop Thursday that it took more work this year to find a way to balance the budget than in the past two years.

Brege presented the factors affecting the budget, including enrollment numbers, tuition rates, and state aid.

Enrollment numbers in FY 2026 were 1,613 students in the fall semester and 1,508 in the spring semester.

Credit hour enrollment was 14,364 in the fall semester and 12,989 in the spring semester.

Annual tuition and fees was $5,430 for 30 contact hours in FY 2026.

Property tax revenue per enrolled student was $3,499 in FY 2026. State operations appropriation per enrolled student was $6,658, for a total revenue of $15,587 per enrolled student. Only one Michigan community college in ACC’s peer group of 10 rural community colleges takes in less revenue per enrolled student than ACC.

Brege is expecting that the college will receive 37.32% of revenue from state aid, 41.12% from tuition/fees, and 20.03% from property taxes. The rest of the college’s funding will come from federal money, interest, and “other”.

The budget included factors like natural gas costs which will be going up by about $30,000 due to contracts ending.

Insurance premiums will be rising by about $35,000.

Brege is projecting a balanced budget for the next three fiscal years.