At State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, we make every effort to be a financial role model for our students. We demonstrate the value of saving and investing hard-earned money in ways that benefit our future. This spring, that practice is allowing us to take on three major construction and renovation projects to upgrade our oldest campus — SCF Bradenton.

We are remodeling and adding to the Science Building, one of the oldest and busiest buildings on campus, building the Studio for the Performing Arts, which will connect to the Neel Performing Arts Center, and remodeling our former library to become the Center for Advanced Technology and Innovation.

These projects have two things in common. Each provides greater access for our students to high impact education in science and the arts, and each would not be possible without our ability to have strong financial reserves available for strategic investment.

The College’s income is from state budget allocations and tuition. We work hard to find efficiencies in our annual budget and set money aside in our reserve funds for future needs and emergencies. We save to invest in our future, just as we recommend to our students.

Our reserves are dedicated to our long-term goals for campus and program improvements, construction projects and the inevitable disaster recovery. When we discuss financial literacy with our students, we recommend saving for three to six months of expenses. By contrast, the state mandates that the College maintain only five percent of our annual budget in reserves. That is just three weeks of operating costs for SCF. This policy makes our institution financially vulnerable.

We are hopeful that the legislature acts this spring to allow us to expand our ability to hold money in reserve. The investment we are making in our oldest campus this year demonstrates our ability to responsibly and impactfully use the money we have saved. Our commitment to saving allows us to provide the final funding needed to proactively begin work on our projects at a time when construction costs are rapidly increasing.

We committed $1.5 million in reserve funds to the Science Building remodel and addition to demonstrate our commitment for the project to the state legislature. After receiving almost all the required funding from the state, our reserves are providing the final capital required to begin construction. The Studio for the Performing Arts is possible thanks to our region’s philanthropic community, but to act in a cost-effective and time-sensitive manner, our reserves will allow us to begin construction while we continue to fundraise to the total project cost. Being forced to wait would only drive up the cost of these projects.

Without reserves to fund the remodel of our old library we could not have applied for and received a $3.6 million Florida Department of Economic Opportunity grant to create the Center for Advanced Technology and Innovation, which will house a coding academy, technology incubator and accelerator, video studio and university partnership center. This is a tremendous asset for our students and community that would not have been possible without our ability to fund the building’s remodel.

Strategic saving is something we should all aspire to and the example we strive to set for our students and graduates. Investing our savings back into our institution will pay off for generations of SCF students.

Dr. Carol F. Probstfeld is president of State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota