HARRISBURG — Nick Neupauer, president of Butler County Community College, was one of three community college presidents who testified Thursday before the House Appropriations Committee.

They said Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed budget risks putting higher education out of reach for students and will stifle the state’s recovery.

At the hearing, the presidents said that while Corbett’s call for increased career training and his statements that a skilled workforce is essential to a strong economy, his fiscal year 2012-13 budget reduces community college budgets by an estimated 5 percent. Community colleges, they said, are important when it comes to training the workforce and rebuilding Pennsylvania’s economy.

The other two presidents to testify were Alex Johnson, president of the Community College of Allegheny County and president of the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges, and Jim Linksz, president of Bucks County Community College.

Neupauer is vice president of the commission, which sent out a news release about their testimony.

Johnson pointed out that the proposed state support for 2012-13 is below 1995-96 levels, while enrollment has grown by nearly 65,000 students in that same time period. Collectively, the colleges served almost a half-million students in the 2010-11 academic year.

“The irony of this erosion of state support comes at a time when the commonwealth and its residents need community colleges to be providing more, not less, in terms of programs and access,” Johnson said in the release.

The state’s 14 community colleges requested an increase of $10 million in capital funding for 2012-13. That is comparable to the amount of new dollars Corbett and Budget Secretary Charles Zogby are providing for other higher education institutions in the new fiscal year.

The presidents also requested restoration of their operating budgets.