January 31, 2023

Welcome 

Minutes and agenda were approved.

Adriana Garcia stepped down from this committee.  There is not a new classified tri-chair yet, but Adam Contreras from CSEA is joining the committee as a classified staff voting member.

Mission, Norms and Charge

Working document: Draft mission and norms

Mission statement was approved unanimously.

Mission of PAC: To make recommendations concerning programs and resource allocation, including planning and evaluation processes, in relation to the College’s mission, equity plan, and institutional core competencies.

Norms were approved unanimously.

Norms: 

1. Members will honor the topics and times of the meeting agenda. Agendas and materials will be distributed in advance and all members will be prepared to participate fully in the entire meeting.
2. Members will present issues completely, accurately, honestly and acknowledging bias, using authentic primary sources of data and not selectively withholding information. 
3. Members will encourage full and open participation by all participants and will demonstrate a respect for and willingness to listen to diverse opinions and viewpoints. 
4. Members will govern their interpersonal behavior on the basis of mutual respect and trust for one another and will avoid personal attacks, physical and verbal intimidation, and asserting the authority of their positions. 
5. Members will maintain respect for team discussions and consensus decisions within and outside of team meetings. 
6. Members will communicate with their constituencies disseminating information clearly and concisely and gathering feedback
7. Each team member is empowered and responsible for understanding the Mission and Charge of PAC and enforcing these ground rules.

General Procedures:

There was a lengthy conversation of consensus decision making versus majority voting, when and how votes can be called, and what to do if a consensus can’t be reached (General Procedure #4).  Besides an agreed-upon decision-making / voting procedure, we need a way to ensure voting members have full information before voting.  A big concern is how to make decisions that value all voices.  If votes require a simple majority, or even a two-thirds supermajority, a vote can pass even if a constituency group votes unanimously against it.  Voting members should also keep in mind that they should always be voting for what’s best for our students and the entire college, not just themselves or their constituent group.  We should always be putting student needs front and center.

ACTION NEEDED:  We will bring back the charge and general procedures for further disucssion next week.  We also need to establish a policy on whether proxy voting will be permitted.

 Report from the Budget Committee

Pam Grey reported out on last week's Budget Task Force (BTF) meeting.  BTF recommends using SRP money to fund the three nursing faculty positions and one automotive technology management faculty position that PAC voted to recommend last meeting.  (SRP stands for Supplemental Retirement Plan.  These are positions that were left vacant to save the college money after faculty were incentivized to retire several years ago and have just this year been opened by the District to fill again.)  Pam screenshared the spreadsheet with the remaining vacant SRP positions; four would be used to fund the positions approved by PAC last week, leaving three still vacant.  The three nursing positions can’t be funded using the funds from the folks who resigned from nursing because those positions were paid for out of the Strong Workforce Program (SWP).  The College decided to fund them from SWP during previous budget cuts to save other positions, but now we need to move them out of that funding source.

BTF is still waiting on a list of vacant available positions from HR.  They hope to have that by the next BTF meeting this week.

The PAC chairs are still waiting to hear from Anita Muthyala-Kandula on what the exact requirements for the faculty in the nursing program are.

ACTION NEEDED: PAC chairs will bring the four recommended positions to hire and the recommended funding source to the next College Council meeting for approval and recommendation to the President Holmes.

Resource Allocation Process

• Jamboard

The CTE Committee (Career and Technical Education) makes their own recommendations on allocating restricted funds, which they used to present to IPBT and will now present to PAC for approval.  Perkins and SWP (Strong Workforce Program) allocations are made by the CTE Committee.  After those allocations are made and approved, then PAC allocates lottery and instructional equipment funds.  Lottery money can now be used for basic needs.

Resignations and retirements go into the institutional pool of resources and are not the province of any one particular corner of campus.  How do we decide where the money should go to improve the college as a whole?  Is that decided here in PAC, or in the budget committee?  It will be necessary for the budget committee to alert PAC of restrictions on how available money can be spent.   For example, the 50% rule for instructional spending.  Also, if a classified professional resigns or retires, is it negotiated that they must be replaced?  Christina Espinosa-Pieb said the replacement of classified positions is not a negotiated policy with ACE, but it does follow from the College's past practices.  Should we keep the classified staff replacement policy in place?  How do we determine if a new classified position is needed?  This policy would mean that classified positions always stay classified, but faculty positions can be changed from faculty to classified.  We also need to keep in mind the different hiring timelines for faculty and classified.

If a full-time faculty position isn’t replaced, their classes can be taught by a part-time instructor.  If a classified position isn’t replaced, there is no one to do that work.  Also, in theory, the faculty positions should ebb and flow responding to the demand of student enrollment.  The state has guidelines on what percent of FTEF (full-time equivalent faculty) should be full-time faculty, and De Anza is far from meeting those standards.

We may run into some friction from the district and how the money we receive from the state must be used.  This is where the budget committee can be helpful in letting us know the ramifications of certain decisions.