DANVILLE — Danville Area Community College trustees today will get their first look at a proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year.

"We're pleased to be able to present a balanced budget," President Alice Jacobs said, adding the proposal would allow the college to launch its new echocardiography program this fall, replace a part-time faculty member with a full-time one in four programs that have seen continual high enrollments, as well as continue all of its current programs and services.

The Danville Area Community College Board of Trustees will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday (Aug. 23). The meeting is in Vermilion Hall, Room 302, at the campus, 2000 E. Main St. A copy of the agenda is available at http://bit.ly/o25MM5.

The proposed spending plan covers the fiscal year that started on July 1 and ends on June 20, 2012. Under it, the college would spend a total of about $38.5 million, Chief Financial Officer Gail Morrison said.

She said it includes money to continue the Mary Miller Center expansion and renovation project, which kicked off earlier this year. It also includes money to continue updating computer equipment and other technology.

Morrison said the proposed operating budget — unrestricted funds that pay for most salaries and benefits, contractual services, utilities and other day-to-day expenses — would take in and spend about $15.59 million. That's about a 6.1 percent increase over the 2011 operating budget.

Morrison said about $3.93 million, or 25.2 percent of the revenue, would come from state funding, and about $6.47 million, or 41.5 percent, would come from tuition and fees. About $4.75 million, or 30.5 percent, would come from local property taxes and corporate personal property replacement tax.

Officials said the tax levy rate is anticipated to be between 61.03 cents and 62.05 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, depending on the overall equalized assessed valuation in the district. The current rate is 61.93 cents, which is down from about 66 cents from the 1998-2001 fiscal years.

Officials said state funding remains flat. Morrison said state funding for the current fiscal year has been coming in on time, but the state still owes the college about $1.5 million in late payments and grants.

On the expenditure side, Morrison said, about 70 percent of the operating budget would go toward personnel expenses.

"We're a service industry," she said. "We want to continue to invest in our human resources so that we can retain the high quality of staff that we have."

She said the increase includes salaries and benefits for the new instructor for the echocardiography program and four other new full-time instructors — one each in the culinary arts, graphic design, auto body/auto mechanics programs and biology — that are replacing the part-time instructors.

"The full-time instructors were needed because of the growth in those programs," Morrison said.

Trustees will vote on whether to put the proposed budget on display. They will vote on whether to adopt the budget at their Sept. 27 meeting.