S.C. State working on paying $6.5M debt to Sodexo

South Carolina State University’s financial situation is improving, officials say.

The administration reported Wednesday that the school picked up 212 more students than the projected 2,650, increasing revenue by $1.08 million for 2015-16.

The extra funds come from tuition, fees and auxiliary money such as food service and the book store, head of Finance and Management Ed Patrick said.

The increased enrollment also created the added expense of opening and maintaining the dormitory Mays II to make room for the additional students, but that’s a good expense, he said.

Patrick also reported that preliminary figures show the university’s operating loss of $36.6 million in fiscal year 2014 dropped to $31.8 million in FY 2015, a change of 13 percent. FY 2015 ended June 30.

Additionally, a loss of $10 million in non-operating revenue in FY 2014 dropped to $3.2 million in FY 2015.

“It shows that we’re being more responsible,” he said after the meeting. “You have to be mindful that in 2015, we didn’t have a so-called balanced budget, yet we improved overall by 300 percent.”

One thing that helped improve the university’s financial outlook is that it was able to renegotiate payment of a $6 million state loan over a period of six years. Originally, the full loan came due on June 30, 2015.

Patrick noted that the administration cut $19 million from the current budget and is keeping a close watch on expenditures all the way down to line items.

If any line “moves in the wrong direction,” action is quickly taken to get the spending under control, he said.

Interim President Dr. W. Franklin Evans reported that all vice presidents are being held responsible for seeing that their departments are operating within their budgets.

“It’s not an option,” Evans said. “Their heads are on the chopping block.”

In other business, Patrick reported that the university is switching its business from Bank of America to South State Bank.

That’s expected to be very beneficial to the university because the bank will offer more opportunities for scholarships and student internships, university spokesperson Liz Mosely said.