12000 S.W. 49th Avenue - Portland, OR 97219
Sylvania Campus, Conference Rooms A & B
May 19, 2005
Budget Committee Members Present: Dana Anderson, Cheryl Bergermeister, Denise Frisbee, Norma Jean Germond, Kirk Hall, Jim Harper, Elizabeth Hengeveld, Jaime Lim, Tom Linhares, Doreen Margolin, Karen McKinney, Lynn McNamara, Bob Palmer, Harold Williams
The Budget Committee work session was called to order by Chair Anderson at 4:05 PM.
President Pulliams updated the budget committee on the current budget situation, commenting that the proposed budget was developed by the college community via a lot of input from the Budget Advisory Committee, the President’s Cabinet, the Planning Council, the Board of Directors, and the Educational Advisory Committee. The budget will allow for some modest new initiatives so PCC can remain a premier institution and he reported that he is recommending reinstating all Category 2 proposed program cuts. President Pulliams reminded everyone that this budget is based on the latest numbers proposed by the Legislature, but these numbers are still not firm.
The President and executive staff discussed answers to the questions formulated by the Budget Committee following the last Budget Committee meeting. Chair Anderson opened the floor for additional questions from the Budget Committee.
Kirk Hall asked “If the budget committee recommends approval to the Board, when will the board adopt the FY 2005-2006 budget?” Chair Anderson said that the Board plans to approve the budget in June. He also asked “What will happen if the governor comes in with a lower budget amount?” The Chair said the Board would have to review the budget and revise it accordingly.
Cheryl Bergermeister asked for further clarification on the PERS situation and how it impacts the PCC budget. Associate Vice President Chung explained the rationale for selling $119 million in bonds to make a lump sum payment to PERS to pay off the unfunded liability. By doing this PCC avoided paying 8% interest on the debt, paying 4.5% instead. She expressed support of this strategy.
Budget committee members acknowledged hearing the passionate and eloquent testimony from students and faculty at the last budget hearing. It had quite an impact. They also thanked staff for quickly responding with detailed responses to their questions.
Denise Frisbee commented that the budget process is odd in that you have to approve a budget without knowing the amount of state funding that will be allocated, and sees the 15 month lay-off notification policy as a real problem in the budget making process. It upsets people because there is not sufficient time for discussion and explanation about the process and meaningful communication about the limits of the budget. The budgeting process needs to be a team effort instead of causing college groups to square off against each other. The lay-off issue is a contractual issue that needs to be discussed because it causes hardship on the staff. Jim Harper agreed with Ms. Frisbee that there should be a review of the lay-off notice issue.
Mr. Harper also agrees that PCC is losing students because of tuition increases and would like to not increase tuition if at all possible. The President reminded the committee that if fewer dollars are received from the state, the money has to come from somewhere.
Karen McKinney and Kirk Hall stated that they feel the policy of maintaining a 5-7% ending fund balance is too low. If extra funds are allocated by the state, part of it should be used to increase the ending fund balance. Mr. Hall would like to see tuition increases made steadily in small increments and believes that students have the expectation that over time tuition will go up. He suggested maybe increases could be made to keep pace with the CPI. Doreen Margolin said that because of the PERS obligation, utility increases, and contractual obligations, tuition would need to go up $3/credit hour if the state funding stays the same, or PCC will have to make cuts. Elizabeth Hengeveld agreed with Ms. Margolin and said that the comments made at the previous budget hearing really brought home the effects these budget changes make in individual lives.
Chair Anderson agreed that the testimony from staff and students pointed out the damage done and the unnecessary pain caused to individuals by the 15 months lay-off policy and much will need to be done to try to restore morale and make the process less painful. Harold Williams feels it would be appropriate for the Board to talk with staff to discuss what needs to be done in the best interest of the institution. He does not like the feeling of “us and them” that the current process promotes.
Chair Anderson called for a motion to amend the FY 2005-2006 budget to include the following budget adjustments: restore approximately $2.4 million in budget reductions as recommended by President Pulliams, including all reductions in instruction due to budget (Category 2), the Campus President position for the Extended Learning Campus, Custodial, IT and Financial Support positions, and reductions due to instructional administration restructuring. The motion was made by Norma Jean Germond and seconded by Harold Williams and it passed unanimously.
A motion to approve the FY 2005-06 budget as amended was moved for approval by Tom Linhares, and seconded by Lynn McNamara. It was approved unanimously.
A motion to approve a permanent property tax levy rate of $0.2828 per $1,000 of assessed value of real properties within the district subject to the education limit, and a property tax levy of $16,599,320 outside of the limit for payment of maturing principal and interest on the District’s general obligation bonds for FY 2005-06 was moved by Kirk Hall, and seconded by Jim Harper. It was approved unanimously.
The budget work session adjourned at 5:55 PM.
Board Members Present:
Dana Anderson, Norma Jean Germond, Jaime Lim, Doreen Margolin, Karen McKinney, Bob Palmer, Harold Williams
The Board of Directors convened an executive session for Employment of a Public Officer, Labor Negotiations, Real Property Transactions and Litigation in accordance with ORS 192.660 (1)(a, d, e, h) at 6:45 PM, adjourning at 7:40 PM.
Chair Anderson called the business meeting to order at 7:50 PM, and asked all present to introduce themselves.
The April 21, 2005 business meeting minutes were approved as published with one friendly amendment.
The agenda was approved as published.
Fred Smith, President of Klamath Community College, presented each board member with a cowboy hat and other items to express appreciation for PCC’s assistance in the early days when Klamath Community College needed help getting started. Pete Nevin, KCC board chair, thanked the Board and expressed gratitude and high regard to the PCC Board for the help and confidence they gave to KCC.
Nan Poppe, District Vice President, Academic and Student Affairs, gave a brief summary of the history and work of the Corporate College, recently renamed Center for Business & Industry (CBI). A number of businesses will be co-sponsoring a breakfast at the Hilton Hotel on June 7 to promote the services available through the CBI as a single point of contact. Dr. Pulliams will be the keynote speaker.
The CBI will be working closely with the College Advancement Department to revise marketing and brand identity to incorporate business as a primary market segment. This should improve PCC’s market share, increase revenues and give PCC a higher profile in terms of being an economic resource in this region. Industry specific focus groups will be doing market research to discover PCC’s niche. There is a taskforce with several subcommittees working to identify areas where CBI can improve by becoming more nimble and flexible to meet rapidly changing business needs. They will be working with departments across the District to open up credit programming to business needs. A Congressional set-aside appropriation has been requested and college administrators have met with Oregon legislators to seek support for this funding. One of the new initiatives in the FY 2005-2006 budget includes seed money to get the CBI up and running for the next three years, and administration is confident that at the end of three years the CBI will be self-supporting and contributing to the General Fund.
Director Germond asked if additional businesses will be contacted to participate in the breakfast, and Director McKinney said she hopes that President Pulliams and Dr. Poppe will have opportunity to visit similar programs at other community colleges across the country to glean ideas. Dr. Poppe said plans are being made to make those types of visits.
David Goldberg distributed tabulations of the May 17 election, and congratulated Jaime Lim and Doreen Margolin on winning re-election, and Denise Frisbee and Jim Harper on winning in their zones. The Board and staff are very pleased with the outcome.
He discussed the mood of the legislature and the behind-closed-doors negotiating that has been going on among legislators. He reported that the House bill on education funding passed the House, but Democrats in the House were forced to vote ‘no’ because the community college budget was tied to the K-12 budget. The
Senate has not voted on the budget yet, but is sensitive to the effects of tuition increases on students and the importance to the economy of community college. They are encouraging community colleges to try to hold tuition rates down as much as possible by keeping $422 million in the college support fund.
Oregon Opportunity Grants fared well in the Governor’s budget and funding for part-time students may be funded (fully or partially) in the second year of the biennium. Mr. Goldberg briefly highlighted Senate Bill 639, which established the Oregon Education Benefits Board. This is a hotly contested bill that is being pushed by the Governor and supported by the unions. There is no evidence that this larger pool will save institutions any money, making it a politically tricky bill. OCCA leadership will be presenting the pros and cons of this bill to the Oregon President’s Council and the OCCA Board, and will be asking them to advise them on a position to take since either bill is politically dangerous.
Mr. Goldberg reviewed several other bills related to community colleges: House Bill 2060 establishing authority for CCWD to administer alternative retirement plans for community colleges; and Senate Bill 300 that provides expanded options for 16 year-old and older high school students to have access to community college classes by having their high school contract to pay for it.
President Pulliams thanked Mr. Goldberg, Jan Coulton, and everyone involved in the legislative lobbying process. It is having a very positive impact and legislators are anxious to do what they can with the money that is available. Director Germond reported that Denise Frisbee very effectively testified at the state budget hearing held at Lakeridge High School and others testified at the state budget hearing held at Cascade Campus. Chair Anderson thanked Board members for their efforts with the legislature and at budget hearings to keep the budget issues before them.
None
President Pulliams asked to remove Resolution 05-092 from the consent agenda to discuss a revision. Director Margolin moved to approve Resolutions 05-082 through 05-091 by consent agenda and it passed unanimously. Director Germond asked if it would be possible to work with any interested MWESB contractors to help them in the bidding process so they may become successful low bidders. Chair Anderson asked for a report on PCC’s efforts in working with MWESB contractors. Director Williams said that if some of the jobs could be broken into separate contracts, more minority contractors would be able to bid on the jobs. The consent agenda passed unanimously.
Director Palmer moved to approve Resolution 05-092. President Pulliams said PCC needs to step up fund-raising efforts and to that end he appointed a subcommittee to develop revisions to Board Policy B703. The President recommends removing the section on page 212 of the Naming Policy Guidelines on Faculty/Staff Endowed Positions for further investigation and discussion. Director Germond heartily agreed and also questioned the Facilities Naming Guidelines section. Director McKinney suggested setting up some type of monitoring system to see how these fund-rising efforts are working. Director Germond moved to amend the motion by removing the Faculty/Staff Endowed Positions section of the Naming Policy Guidelines and it passed unanimously. The resolution, as amended, passed unanimously.
Chair Anderson recommended that the Board self-evaluation discussion be postponed to the optional June 23 board meeting. Following the discussion in June, the chair will draft a final report.
Michael Dembrow, President of the Faculty Federation, thanked President Pulliams for recommending the restoration of the Category 2 budget cuts, and pointed out that some non-instructional positions were also restored, even though the importance of those positions was never discussed. He feels they should not have been reinstated before lowering the tuition increase to $1/credit hour, and reinstating other instructional positions and The Bridge newspaper staff. He feels that an institution the size of PCC needs to have a student newspaper. He commented that he appreciated Director McKinney’s support of the ENNL program.
Mr. Dembrow said that the Board heard earlier that the faculty contract is an impediment to open discussion about potential program changes. He stressed that the 15-month lay-off notice is not the source of the problem: the March 31 date is the problem. We will always have this problem as long as we have delays in getting state budget information. The March 31 deadline is not important for tenured faculty, but is very important for probationary faculty because they only receive three months’ lay-off notice. The March 31 date is also important because it gives a date by which budget decisions must be made in the budget approval process. The Federation’s position has always been that the earlier people know their programs are in jeopardy, the better. If they know their program is being scrutinized, they can come up with alternatives to a lay-off, both during times of budget crises and not.
Mr. Dembrow is concerned by President Pulliams’s statement that Category 1 cuts would not be brought back even if there were a surplus of money, because there were no discussions with faculty about why these programs are not longer viable. He commended administration for setting up meetings with the staff cut in Category 1, but feels that administration needs to work with faculty to set up strategies to help struggling programs and work on why there is an enrollment drop.
Michael Dembrow, President of the Faculty Federation, congratulated the winners of the May election and said the Union was very pleased with the outcome of the election. He thanked the Board and administrators for reconsidering the naming policy and is optimistic that a policy can be formulated that will work for everyone.
Mr. Dembrow disagrees with Mr. Goldberg’s comments on the Oregon Education Benefits Board. The Federations have problems with the OSBA plan limiting school’s ability to shop around for better rates and programs. They feel the Benefits Board has a lot of potential to bargain into health benefits for part-time faculty.
Mr. Dembrow looks forward to seeing Board members at graduation and the next Board meeting.
Lucia Barnett, President of the Classified Federation, also thanked the Board for restoring Category 2 cuts. The Classified Federation is glad the incumbents were re-elected, is looking forward to working with the two new board members, and said that Directors Anderson and Germond will be greatly missed.
The negotiation process seems to be slow, tedious and chaotic at times because they are doing interest-based bargaining. She feels that once the process is in full swing it will become a collaborative effort and will benefit the staff and college.
The Classified Federation agrees with Mr. Dembrow on Bill 639. OSBA appears to be an insurance brokerage and the 8% they collect on each premium they handle adds unnecessarily to health care expenses. OSBA refuses to share rate information and how premium monies are used, and won’t share records so PCC could move to another insurance carrier or negotiate better benefits and lower costs.
Ms. Barnett is looking forward to seeing everyone at the retirement dinner Friday, May 20.
Danielle Bryant, President of ASPCC-Sylvania, reported that on May 11 the students held a postcard campaign. Their goal was to have 600 students send personalized postcards to Oregon legislators. The campaign was very successful, thanks to the support of students and teachers. She specifically recognized David Bruckner and
Eric Fronz for all their hard work in organizing the campaign. She also expressed appreciation to the Board for being able to work along side them in lobbying the legislature for additional funding.
Ms. Bryant reported that several thousand dollars were raised for the Linda Hummer Scholarship. Linda Hummer is a former PCC student body president who was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ms. Hummer started her education at PCC and is pursuing her bachelors and masters degrees at PSU. On Saturday ASPCC will give her the Outstanding Alumni Award for her efforts at PCC. Ms. Bryant also recognized Phi Theta Kappa for the outstanding regional conference they sponsored, with over 100 students in attendance from the northwest area.
Chair Anderson proudly announced that President Pulliams will be serving on the OCCA Executive Committee next year, and noted that it has been a long time since PCC has been represented on the Executive Committee.
President Pulliams announced that Dr. Bill Christopher has accepted the position of President at Cascadia College in Washington. He congratulated Dr. Christopher, thanked him for the outstanding leadership he has given at the Rock Creek Campus, and wished him all the best.
The President reminded board members of graduation on June 10. Heavy hors d'oeuvres will be provided in the robing area for the rostrum group.
Director McKinney echoed President Pulliams comments that Dr. Bill Christopher will be deeply missed and has been a real asset in Washington County. He was very well known and liked, and will be difficult to replace.
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 9:20 PM.
The next meeting of the Portland Community College Board of Directors will be held on June 16, 2005 at 7:30 PM in Rooms 143 and 144 at Southeast Center.
_____________________________ _____________________________
Chair Anderson President Pulliams
Prepared by:
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Judy Schwartz
Assistant to Board of Directors
Minutes approved on June 16, 2005