Exchange Bank loss cuts into Doyle scholarships

<p>The financial challenges facing Exchange Bank are creating difficulties for students hoping to win scholarship money to attend Santa Rosa Junior College.</p><p>SRJC has already cut back on scholarships funded by Exchange Bank stock and will have to shrink the popular Doyle scholarship program next year if the bank’s woes continue.</p><p>Exchange Bank’s decision to suspend dividends has a direct impact on the Doyle scholarship program, which has provided $76 million to 112,000 students in the past six decades.</p><p>The scholarship fund relies on dividends paid to the bank’s largest shareholder, the Doyle Trust, created in 1948 by bank co-founder Frank Doyle. Traditionally, it awards about 4,000 scholarships a year averaging $1,000 each through the Frank P. Doyle and Polly O’Meara Doyle Scholarship Fund.</p><p>This summer, however, SRJC officials reduced the number of scholarship awards in anticipation of a drop in funding, said Bob Agrella, SRJC president.</p><p>After awarding 3,108 scholarships in the spring, the school eliminated the second round of applications for the fall semester that normally adds hundreds more students to the program, Agrella said.</p><p>“I just got very, very nervous about the whole economic situation,” Agrella said. “I took a very, very conservative approach.”</p><p>While there is enough money for current Doyle students to continue receiving scholarships while they study at SRJC, the bank’s decision to suspend dividends indefinitely has raised questions about the availability of scholarships for incoming students next year.</p><p>Last year, the Doyle scholarship fund received $5.3 million from the Doyle trust, which owns 864,000 shares of Exchange Bank stock — just over half of the bank’s 1.7 million outstanding shares. The flow of money has been uninterrupted for six decades, the result of Exchange Bank’s decision to pay dividends every year since 1946.</p><p>Currently, the fund has a healthy surplus, which ensures that every student who accepted a scholarship this year will get all the money promised, Agrella said. In addition, after all that money is paid out this year, the fund expects to have about $1 million left over. </p><p>That should be enough to cover any current Doyle scholars’ second year as well, Agrella said.</p><p>But if the bank’s dividends don’t return by next summer, the fund may not be able to grant any new scholarships to current high school seniors, Agrella said. </p><p>Signs at the scholarship window in Plover Hall on Friday alerted students that no Doyle scholarship applications would be accepted for the remainder of the current 2008-09 year.</p><p>Some students hoping to obtain Doyle scholarships must now find other financial means to pay for tuition, books and living expenses.</p><p>Tia Petersen was one of those hopefuls.</p><p>“I’m a poor student. Really, everything helps,” Petersen said as she headed to study at the college library.</p><p>A Casa Grande High graduate, Petersen, 20, transferred to the junior college from Sacramento State University this school year. The junior aims to complete enough classes so she can enroll at Sonoma State University as a communications and marketing major next year.</p><p>The scholarship money would have allowed her to stretch finances for a variety of expenses, from $625 for monthly rent to $150 in supplies for an art class, as well as books and parking.</p><p>“It’s definitely critical,” she said.</p><p>No Doyle scholarship this year means Jesse McGuire must work more to earn money for school and living expenses.</p><p>“It would take the load off a little bit,” McGuire said.</p><p>A graphic designer, McGuire, 34, is studying digital media to improve his job prospects. The transplant from Carson City, Nev., already stretches finances , for instance, by working on his Healdsburg rental home and relying on library books to limit book purchases.</p><p>“Ain’t nothing going to stop me from going to school. The extra bucks would be nice. I’d like a car to drive to school,” he said.</p><p>Agrella said the Doyle program is important, but far from the only source of financial aid to local students. SRJC students received about $20 million in aid last year from a wide variety of programs. That means even if the fund closed tomorrow, there would be $16 million available, he said.</p><p>“If a student come to the SRJC, we will find a way to get them though the college with or without the Doyle Scholarship Fund,” he said.</p><p>As an administrator, Agrella said he has an obligation to be as conservative as possible. But personally, he said he’s optimistic Exchange Bank will turn things around and restore the dividends.</p><p>“I’m confident, in my own mind, it will be back,” he said. </p><p>Staff Writer Michael Coit contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.</p>