DACC celebrating Spirit Week; Family Science Night on Friday
Nov. 1—DANVILLE — Danville Area Community College has been celebrating Spirit Week this week.
There have been Halloween displays and costumes, fall art show and sale on Wednesday and other activities.
Family Science Night also is from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at Mary Miller Gymnasium.
This is a free community event with lots of hands-on science and technology activities for the entire family. Children can have fun and explore how a career in science, technology, engineering and math can help build a bright future.
In other recent DACC news, the board of trustees approved entering into a lease agreement with the city of Danville for usage of the Winter Park softball fields. A request was made to enter into a lease agreement with the City of Danville. The lease will be effective from Jan. 1, 2024 through Dec. 31, 2028 and will have an annual cost of $1. The lease includes the Winter Park softball fields, concession and maintenance building. The ball fields will be used by the DACC women's softball team, and recreational slow-pitch softball teams and periodic softball tournaments and similar events, according to DACC officials.
The board also approved the Fiscal Year 2024 budget and tax levy.
According to DACC officials, the operational budget of $19,732,000 is approximately 7.4% higher than the FY2023 operating budget. With the adoption of a FY24 budget at the state level, which resulted in a 9% decrease in DACC's operating and equalization grants, as well as continued increases in local property taxes as a result of an increasing Equalized Assessed Valuation, the community college will be able to move forward by investing in human resources to maintain quality instruction and student service, provide training needed to meet the employment demands of the community, cover software increases, improve network infrastructure, maintain the Colleague SIS/ERP system in the Cloud, and cover estimated increases in health insurance premiums and utilities, according to the board agenda paperwork.
The FY2024 budget would have $33,145,470 total budgeted expenditures for all funds of the district.
Depending on the fluctuation in the EAV, the tax levy rate is anticipated to be approximately 60.37 cents. The current rate is 60.33 cents.
In other business, the board approved a three-year agreement with Sophos to provide a cybersecurity Managed Security Program for $153,245 for Nov. 1, 2023 through Oct. 31, 2026. Instances of cyberattacks continue to increase and several Illinois community colleges have been victim of cyberattacks in the recent past. Currently, the college utilizes Sophos to deliver certain cyber security functions. DACC officials said they'd like to increase DACC's overall cybersecurity to add a Managed Security Program to provide 24-hour monitoring of systems and data streams. The 3-year agreement with Sophos offers a discount lowering the $57,620 annual amount to $51,082 and increases the services to include the Managed Security Program.
The board also approved purchasing 128 computers from Y&S Technologies for $190,592.
There also was an art students' display at the last board meeting.
