May 9, 2023

Rapp meeting minutes 5/9/23

Membership attendance:

In-person:  Izat Rasyad, Moaty Fayek, Tina Lockwood, Mallory Newell, Erik Woodbury, Rob Mieso, Adam Contreras, Salvador Guerrero, Thomas Ray, Debbie Lee, Jason Sousa

Remote: Eric Mendoza, Bidya Subedi, Erick Aragon, Julie Hughes, Andre Meggerson, Pam Grey, Michele Lebleu-Burns, Felisa Vilaubi, Martin Varela, Nicholas Turangan, Justin Fry, Kate Wang, Alicia Mullens

Absent: Melinda Hughes, Javier Gomez-Tagle, Randy Bryant

Start 10:00am Welcome: Agenda & Minutes 

Agenda and meeting minutes from 5/2/23 were approved.

10:04am - Discussion of Carryover Reallocation for Lottery and Inst. Equipment & Reserves

Erik shared the document for unallocated funds in Instructional Equipment.

Erik added - we had some ideas last time about reaching out to the deans to see what the current plans for the funds. There was some debate about whether we even wanted to take this back or leave it there. We had a week to think about this, what we should do moving forward?

Rob added – We did not ask for any feedback from the areas in terms of whether they need it, there was some conversation around whether the initial allocation, what has been spent? and if the remaining funds are still needed? But does not think they decided if they were asking for some kind of reporting from those areas.

Erik commented – There was a general idea to reclaim and reallocate these funds, but we also wanted to check in with people and let them know what was in their accounts and please let us know are the current needs still outstanding. And wanted to add why unspent funds have not been spent? Were the unspent funds actually a critical need? The chairs can reach out to the deans, so we can send those numbers along with last years approved allocations from IPBT and make that request. We can then review those answers and decide at a future meeting, how much we are going to leave there and how much we are going to take back.

Tina asked - If we can vote on the prosses?

Debbie asked - For clarification on what we are voting on.

Motion on the floor/ We are voting on adopting a new process.

·      We will get a division-by-division break down of the current carryover money in the Instructional Equipment account from last year’s allocations Spring of 2021

·      Once we have that information the chairs will email the division deans stating what is currently in their accounts and what the funds were approved for.

·      Could the deans let us know, if these are still needs or are things funded from a different account? For the soul purpose of getting unspent funds back to reallocate.

Justin asked – Is there a system for bodies to say “yes we would like to keep this budget for more than a year” is that already established?

Erik replied – I think we are establishing that process in part, based what he heard previously there was some past practice of reclaiming part or all the money. After the year had passed the money had fallen back into a fund that could be reallocated. But that is what we are also formalizing as a new body, is that going to be our process?

Justin – We need to formalize as part of this a method of a body saying yes, we need to keep this money for more than a year?

Erik - Agrees, maybe we could do that through mid-year and end of year check-ins, we allocate the funds and the 4-6 months we have a check-in then 6 months after that.

10:12am Voted: on adopting the new process as discussed, passes with no objection.

Erik - Will coordinate with Martin for the division breakout to make sure we are looking at the right numbers.

2nd part of conversation is a Target reserve for Inst. Equipment being about a half a million dollars.

·       What amount of reserve as the target would we like to have for both Inst. Equipment & Lottery?

·       Is the half a million which seems to be sort of our past practice, Do we want to formalize that and adopt that as our target for both of these funds/ one of these funds?

·       What’s an appropriate amount?

Rob – Suggest for this year to follows the past practice, allocations vary from year to year. We can revisit that next year but for this year since we have a healthy unspent amount, we should follow past practice this year.

Tina question do we track in anyway when we use the reserve and how much was used for future reference, so we can have a long-term view of how much was needed years from now.

Martin replied - the funds were left unallocated.

Erik -So when its unallocated we can track when it is allocated.

Moaty suggested to set a spending ceiling for the VPI.

Rob – There are 2 things there’s the VPI contingences $100,000 and then there was an unallocated reserve. There are 2 categories we should go with these two contingences for the VPI as Moaty suggested to be able to access those funds for unexpected expenses. The reserve for larger expenditures may need come here to RAPP to be tracked.

Erik asked – Is there any advantage to create a “RAPP Contingence Fund” vs sitting in an unallocated account?

Rob added - we may need to make that transition.

Erik – We will target half a million for Instructional Equipment, do we also want to have a target reserve for Lottery? Are there emergency Lottery expenditures that come up?

Moaty – with his experience he never runs into Lottery issues.

Thomas – agrees with having a reserve for the Lottery.

Martin added – We do receive nearly a million dollars in on going funding annually.

Thomas added – He is going to have a meeting with Martin about issues around the need to have a reserve for the Lottery. They will meet and contact the chairs for the next meeting.

Debbie added - Looking at the lottery 22-23 VPI contingency it is 241 thousand dollars; previous year was 200 thousand.

Mallory added – Moaty said we should set emergency funds to a certain amount and if it’s over that amount (e.g., more than 10%) then it goes to RAPP for approval, do we want to discuss this as an item?

Erik added – If the VPI contingency funds is $100,000 and it is more than $10,000 it has to come to RAPP?

Thomas – there is a difference contingency is unexpected expense, an emergency is something that breaks down and needs to be fixed immediately.

Martin – in the terms of the reserve, it should be for years we don’t receive funds from the district or from the state. So we can still allocate some money for emergency for years that there is no funding.

Erik – in summary

·      We are going to communicate the deans about the currently allocated funds.

·      Then bring back to RAPP before the end of the quarter, on how much we want to take back and allocate the following year.

·      $100,000 for VPI

·      $400,000 rainy day emergency fund for RAPP

10:40am Timeline for Personnel Request Form: Faculty:

Mallory – the Personnel subcommittee worked on this form. Some feedback it was very specific to instructional faculty, and it needed to be tailored to non-instructional faculty that was now added to the form. On both forms the guiding principles are listed that the request should be aligned to which is DeAnza’s mission in educational master plan. In enrollment we decided to go with 3 years of data instead of 5 years.

Andre in chat - Would this hurt the requests for instructors that received the ‘golden handshake’ during shelter in place or the last “cuts?” Going back 3 years… I am referencing.

Thomas – There are some positions that don’t serve the students directly, that are faculty positions? Mallory responded – on the form there is a section saying Teaching, Learning, and or support to cover any population gaps.

Dr. Elvin T. Ramos in chat - I also think Equity Gaps are different (by measure) from today, during covid, and 5 years ago. 3 years seems to be a good range to assess. I agree with Thomas. (Qualitative measure can be a different argument)

Mallory - Keep the justification responses to 300 words while filling out the document.

Andre in chat - I think I need an example how this works, I feel my understanding has it wrong in my head… my stuff not putting this on anyone else. I do appreciate this template with room for growth. Are there cases where the Dean is also the chair?

Eric responded - In department where there are no parttime faculty the dean would be the chair.

Daniel Smith in chat - I have multiple departments with FT faculty but no Chairs.

10:55am Personnel Request Form: Classified Staff:

Mallory - The staff form is simpler in the fact that they don’t have data the same way the instructional faculty do, but they do have additional questions. Same guiding principles.

Moaty - This form is for new positions only?

Mallory - Yes new classified and administrative requiring new funding.

Pam asked – What division would administrative services be in? form had “division and program” decided to changed “program” to “Area” on the form to fit classified and administrative positions.

Moaty - It’s great to it is going to be hard to get this done by the 22nd are we going to hire off cycle what is the point of rushing.

Erik – this looks like a lot more to fill out, part of the feedback about our prioritization process previously it was too numbers driven. There wasn’t a lot of space to talk about more qualitative aspects and to get data on what do positions do and the impact. Now that we are bringing in classified positions it becomes a more complicated process. We are asking for more information; the information is going important for what we are trying to do.

Mallory went over the timeline for the forms:

·      May 9th form ready from subcommittee.

·      May 16th – Distribute form.

·      May 22nd – personnel requests due back to RAPP committee uses new criteria to review requests.

·      May 23rd and May 30th – discuss and finalize requests.

·      June 6th RAPP approves hiring recommendations.

·      June 8th – College council approve recommendations.

·      June 19th final academic senate – approve hiring committees.

Bidya Subedi in chat - This timeline is for both new faculty and staffing hiring right?

Mallory - correct.

11:10am Vote To approve the forms: With no objections, forms were approved.

11:11am Timeline Development for RAPP work:

Mallory - Year 1

·      Early October, Program Review & Resource Allocations forms will be available.

·      Late November, Forms are due.

·      Early January, RAPP Decisions: Approvals. Program Review feedback and Resource Allocations approvals

·      Late January, College Council Decisions: Resource allocations.

·      Late January, purchasing: Departments begin purchasing based on resource allocations.

·      Early April forms due: Personnel Requests: Faculty, New classified, New Administrators.

·       Mid May, RAPP Decisions: Personnel approvals.

·      In June, College council approvals.

Year 2

·      October, New Faculty Hiring begins.

·      In the end of year 2, Reallocation of funds: Any unused resources allocated are reverted to unallocated.

Debbie commented – she has a hard time with waiting that long for a full-time faculty member. If faculty requests could be made with the program review resource request, so that we can have hiring process start more in January February

Mallory – in response to Debbie, instead of having the process start in April it would start in October. Anyone who had retired in October of the prior year would wait until October to catch everybody that retired in spring and summer.

We are going to bring these dates back for discussion next meeting.

11:25am end of meeting.