Leadership at East Mississippi Community College is scrambling to reverse nearly a decade's worth of deficit spending that has tanked the school's general operating fund balance.

Documents provided to The Dispatch on Wednesday show EMCC's general operating fund balance has fallen more than $10 million since Fiscal Year 2010 -- from roughly $11 million to only $710,844 by the end of June 2018.

EMCC President Scott Alsobrooks and two of the school's board members confirmed those figures are accurate.

It's still unclear whether the fund balance will decrease further for Fiscal Year 2019, which ended June 30, because Alsobrooks said EMCC is still receiving invoices that will be billed to that fiscal year. However, he hopes cost-cutting measures the school put in place after his arrival as president in January will assure at least a break-even year.

Those cost-cutting measures included leaving non-vital positions vacant after employee attrition though retirement or resignation, he said.

"We're hopeful that we don't (end up in the red)," Alsobrooks said. "We may not end up in the red. I will know that in the coming weeks. ... But, it's looking very positive. ... We may be in the red, but just slightly, and hopefully not as much as we have in years past. They've run some mighty large deficits."

Still, the board-approved Fiscal Year 2020 budget, a copy of which a board member provided The Dispatch on Wednesday, shows the school plans to pull almost $1.9 million from various reserve funds to balance costs and revenue.

Alsobrooks said some of that will come from its general reserve fund that currently holds about $13 million, which sits just at the nationally recommended threshold of 40 percent of total operations to be held in reserve. Most, he said, will come from a special fund set aside to start the Communiversity -- an industrial training facility built on Highway 82 in Lowndes County with local, state and Appalachian Regional Commission grant funding that will open this fall. That special fund holds a total of about $3.5 million, he said.

EMCC's main campus is in Scooba, but also has a Golden Triangle campus in Mayhew, the Communiversity and Lion Hills Center and Country Club in Columbus.

EMCC's board of trustees is comprised of two members from each of the counties EMCC serves: Lowndes, Lauderdale, Oktibbeha, Clay, Noxubee and Kemper.

Those members are voted to the EMCC board from each county's board of supervisors.

Athletics spending

Athletics proved the primary drain to EMCC's general operating fund balance, at least in FY 2018, the most recent year for which The Dispatch obtained detailed documents.

That department spent $2.035 million that fiscal year, outpacing its revenue by $1.14 million. Non-athletic line items in EMCC's general fund operated at a combined $300,000 surplus in FY 2018.

The $1.1 million spent in 2018 on the vaunted EMCC football program, which has won five junior college national championships under Coach Buddy Stephens and was the subject of the first two seasons of the Netflix documentary "Last Chance U," exceeded the $895,000 in total athletics revenue that year all by itself.

Athletics salaries in each sport have increased across the board over the past 10 years, with total salaries and benefits for the school's eight sports programs rising from $964,275 in 2009 to $1,335,420 in 2018.

Football accounts for $734,771 of that, with Stephens hauling in $124,732 and pay for his six assistants ranging from $25,000 to $90,000. The school also provides them with housing and other fringe benefits.

The 2020 budget shows a $232,171 cut throughout athletics, including a $51,032 reduction in football specifically.

Coaches salaries, however, appear to have stayed the same.

"We have made cuts in athletics," Alsobrooks said. "We've cut across the board, every sport. We have made some cuts and based on enrollment we will probably make other cuts in coming years. You're right to assume when you have that kind of cash out and that revenue coming in, it's just an obvious target for cuts. We have made cuts there and we will probably have to cut more moving forward."

Alsobrooks added that EMCC will look to cut down on uniform costs, travel and other non-personnel but said he hopes enrollment starts to increase to eliminate the threat of further cuts at the college.

Board members Lance Walters of Lowndes County and Spencer Broocks of Oktibbeha County, acknowledged the strain athletics spending is placing on college operations as a whole.

"The athletics is the most significant part," Walters said. "That, to me, is nice to have but it's not a 'must have.' We're looking at how to restrain that, maybe even for just a year until we can get our revenue up. I don't want to blame this on all of football, but football is an opportunity to (cut). What can we do with less and still have a competitive football program?"

Broocks added, though salary cuts were a part of the original proposed budget, those cuts never came to fruition. According to the FY 2020 budget, EMCC did cut a budget for "additional duty pay for athletics" that cost EMCC $106,000 in FY 2019.

"That was in the original plan, that athletic salaries would take a 10-percent cut," Broocks said. "That is not what was approved. Their salaries remained the same, but non-personnel (uniforms, equipment, facility upgrades) did take a cut."

Enrollment decline

Alsobrooks said the direct trend between the college's declining general fund balance also falls in line with declining enrollment.

EMCC has logged a net student loss for the past 10 years with a high of 5,308 enrolled in fall 2010 and only 4,086 enrolled in fall 2018.

While enrollment stayed flat in 2019, according to EMCC officials, the FY 2020 budget is bracing for another 2- to 3-percect dip this year -- as many as another 120 students.

"I hope we can find the bottom to this enrollment downward trend," Alsobrooks said. "If that becomes stabilized, we won't have to be looking at cuts. Right now, looking at our numbers they're looking OK. We've been dropping 3, 4 or 5 percent every year since about 2010. We've been down every year. ... We're always going to have to make adjustments. We may make cuts to certain areas, but hopefully not too bad."

Alsobrooks attributed declining enrollment to a national trend. More and more students are heading to four-year universities or straight into the workforce.

"We're in good shape," Alsobrooks said. "There's many other community colleges in very similar situations."

Walters said EMCC is also looking to petition the state to allocate funds for dual enrollment, a program that allows high school students in the region to take college classes. EMCC allows several programs locally for that, but the college doesn't receive state funding for that student, only tuition in some cases.

"The community college is not getting any money for that student until they come finish that associates (degree)," Walters said. "They are trying to lobby that from the state. The main thing is focusing on how to get enrollment up."

LINK concerned about Communiversity's future

With EMCC opening the $42 million Communiversity this fall, Golden Triangle LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins is worried if the college's general fund woes will translate to the Communiversity's sustainability.

The facility was funded through $18 million in state bonds, $10.7 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission, $10 million from Lowndes County, $2.5 million from Oktibbeha County, $1 million from Clay County and $400,000 from EMCC.

Higgins, whose organization serves as the region's industrial development group, said he is still hopeful for the Communiversity and its impact on the region. He added, however, the college's funding priorities overall need to change.

"There's some questions here that need to be answered, but nobody wants to talk about," Higgins told The Dispatch. "Our local community put $13.5 million into this building. If the school is going through ($10 million in deficits over a decade), about a million a year, that ain't good. ... I think it's pretty clear what's happening here: Workforce development and GED programs may be put on the back burner so we can win us another football championship.

"I am taking a wait-and-see attitude on the Communiversity," he added. "It is a gem. I hope that two or three decades from now we look back and say that is what changed this region forever. But if we don't get the right management and the right resources, I'm not sure we can get where we need to go."

EMCC Board members:

■ Spencer Broocks, Oktibbeha County

■ Kathy Dyess, Clay County

■ Laddie Huffman, Clay County

■ Teresa Hughes, Noxubee County

■ Linda Jackson, Kemper County

■ Hazel Johnson, Noxubee County

■ Rudy Johnson, Oktibbeha County

■ Robert McDade, Kemper County

■ Jimmie Moore, Lauderdale County

■ Ed Mosley, Lauderdale County

■ Greg Stewart, Lowndes County

■ Lance Walters, Lowndes County