MAYVILLE — Jamestown Community College increased enrollment this year, which is a turning around of a trend that has been occurring for nearly a decade.

On Thursday, Daniel DeMarte, JCC president, and Mike Martello, Jamestown Community College vice president of administration, discussed the increase in enrollment at JCC during 2019 with the Chautauqua County Legislature Audit and Control Committee. DeMarte said the trend, in its early stage, for fall semester 2020 is ahead of 2019’s pace.

DeMarte told The Post-Journal that full-time enrollment increased by two students in 2019. Even though the increase isn’t great, he said it’s the first time in eight to nine years — since the Great Recession — that student enrollment has increased at JCC.

Pierre Chagnon, Audit and Control committee chairman, said the county provided an incentive to the college to increase enrollment, which must of assisted in the turnaround.

“This has turned around a long and discouraging trend,” Chagnon said.

After the meeting, Chagnon discussed how county and JCC officials changed the funding model that had been used from being based on each student to a student number range.

Chagnon said at first the college wanted a minimum amount of funding from the county, or a “floor,” no matter how many students enrolled. He said county officials didn’t agree with this proposed changed because it would have provided no incentive to college officials to increase enrollment. He added that instead of a “floor” amount of funding each year for the college, a student enrollment number range would be used. Chagnon said this way college officials would still have an incentive to increase enrollment.

In other business, the committee approved a resolution to use 2% occupancy tax funding of $15,500 to hire Highland Planning of Rochester to provide public engagement about the possible formation of a district for Chautauqua Lake. The public engagement period will be from January to June of next year.

Don McCord, county director of planning and community development, said the Chautauqua Lake Protection and Rehabilitation Agency has been meeting since October 2018 to study the possible formation of a lake district. He said the first year was mostly a “fact finding” year. However, he said now the agency would like to acquire public input about the possible formation of a lake district.

During the November meeting of the agency, McCord said he had been in discussions with Highland Planning about public engagement. He said, if hired, the firm would hold lake stakeholder interviews, which would involve both groups and individuals providing input about the potential lake district. He added that Highland Planning would also be conducting an online survey and would use social media to gather feedback from county residents.

The full legislature will vote on the resolution to hire the public engagement firm during its voting session meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday on the third floor of the Gerace Office Building in Mayville.