April 23, 2024

Attendance, Voting Members: Robert Alexander, Adam Contreras, Alicia De Toro, Benjamin Furgganan, Pam Grey, Lydia Hearn, Michelle Hernandez, Melinda Hughes, Debbie Lee, Tina Lockwood, Andre Meggerson, Eric Mendoza, Rob Mieso, Mallory Newell, Izat Rasyad, Daniel Solomon, Aditya Sharma, Tim Shively, Bidya Subedi, Kate Wang, Chia Wen, Erik Woodbury

Review minutes from March 19 and April 16

Minutes approved.

Approval of Agenda 

Agenda approved.

Emergency Position Request - Environmental Science  

Continued from the last meeting. Discussion and decision on the emergency position request from Dean Anita Muthyala-Kandula (BHES)

Questions and Discussion

Tim Shively asked about the enrollment for the program.

Anita: 400 last year, 450 this year.

Tim asked about funding for the position.

Erik Woodbury and Mallory Newell confirmed that funding is available from vacancies.

Chia Wen supported the request but wanted clarification about the process. Will it set a new precedent for the future?

Mallory shared the Emergency Requests criteria from the RAPP website. The request meets criteria 2 and 3 that satisfies the requirements for such emergency request.

Rob Mieso asked if there was opposition to advance position request to College Council.

No objections. The position request advances to College Council.

Resource request process: updates, review criteria, available funds and contingency funds 

Erik announced that an updated resource request form will be ready next week. Erik went over the resource request process.

In the fall quarter people were asked to submit resource requests as they develop their program review. People may submit updates to their requests until the beginning of the spring quarter.

All the forms from each division are compiled into a single document. Erik went over the information needed for each of the columns. The options in column E have been changed from 3 to 2 to indicate whether it is a “need” or a “want.”

On the right are the available funding sources. The general practice is to fund request from the most restricted fund to the least restricted. The Strong Workforce and the Perkins are more restrictive.

Vins Chacko has done a fantastic job of tracking what has been spent and what is still available. They will align the requests to the available funds.

The less restrictive funds are the Lottery and the Instructional Equipment Funds. Erik gave a brief explanation on the differences between these two funds.

They have summarized the requests from each division to determine the funds for the requests. Some funds like the library fund are very specific.

If there is enough money, they can approve all the requests quickly and easily. However, it is likely that there will be shortage in at least one of the funds. They will need to determine how to allocate available resources.

Martin E. Varela has provided an update of the available funds and current fund balance. This included $48,000 in library materials, about $1.5 million in instructional equipment. $ 3.3 million in lottery. And then unspent money that was allocated. Last year RAPP set the policy to roll over and reassign this money.

Last week there was a question about the amount to set aside for Contingency Fund. The amount is $400,000 in instructional equipment and $100.000 in lottery.

There were questions and discussions over whether the funds must be sent by a certain time. Some funds can be rolled over while there are funds like the Strong Workforce that have tried to call back unspent funds. Strong Workforce Funds must be spent.

The current timeline shows unused allocated resources reverted to unallocated after one year. Some people pointed out that one year limit may be too tight. Some complicated purchases require more time to complete. Also, people may want to save up funds for larger purchases, like instructional equipment.

Tim asked how the committee determine the legitimacy of a request.

Erik explained that there is a lot of information on the form for review, evaluation, and decision.

When a program has multiple needs, it will be up to the dean to determine the requests. The process should be internal with the deans getting input from the faculty. The deans will work to address and resolve competing needs in their areas.

More discussion on the 1-year vs 2-year time limit for spending the allocated funds. There were strong advocates for the 2-year.

Erik will bring back this item for further discussion.

Program review referrals to full committee-

 Mallory reached out to all the groups to determine referrals back to the full committee for discussion. The are 2 programs (Med Lab and Music) and 1 area (Learning Communities) that need further review.

The full committee will review Med Lab and bring it back for discussion.

Send back Music to the dean for a more complete program review.

Learning Communities. Dean Michelle Hernandez will give the committee an overview of the 18 learning communities on campus to provide context for the program. Who are they serving? How are they serving students and community? Where is the funding? What is the future of Learning Committee.

Discussion of the funding sources and positions

 There were a lot of questions and comments on the budget situations and how funds are allocated for positions. Also, the need for training newer committee members.

Money and positions are being converted from faculty to other positions. People noted various imbalance within the budgetary considerations.

The decision process is district driven. The Budget Committee determines the funds available for allocation.

The current funding source for the college comes from the state and is based on enrollment at the 2017 level. The college has 1 to 2 more years to match or pass that enrollment level. If enrollment remains low than 2017 the college will come under a different source of funding.

The Budget Townhall may provide some clarity on the subject.