Planning, Review and
Budget Council
Regular Meeting
September 18, 2013
Building 400, Room 405
3:00 – 5:00 PM
MINUTES
Present: Patricia Shannon, Jim Matthews, Jennifer Lange, Luis E. Flores, Kathy Kelley, Carolyn Arnold,
Catherine Powell, Wayne Pitcher, Paulette Lino, Mireille Giovanola, Christine Warda, Becky Plaza,
Marcia Corcoran, Kristin Land, Andrew Pierson, Yvonne Wu-Craig, Deonne Kunkel, Tram VoKumamoto, Dale Wagoner, Jan Novak, Sandra Genera, Ken Grace
Called to order 3:10 with request for approval of the minutes.
Corrections to September 4: Mireille’s name is misspelled (here) but correctly in Sept. 11. Top of second
page, revise second paragraph: “Jennifer needs to “requires clarification. Revision: “chart: it needs to be
specific on what was completed in which year. Wording needs to be explicit. If not assessment done in
Spring 13, then only check box on form B. If assessed in Spring 13, complete rest of form.
Change Kathy Kelly to Kelley.
Page 4, towards the middle, when Dale says: is bad, bad business and the double repeat an error or his
emphasis.
Corrections to September 11: Marcia C and Christine W need to be added to attendees.
Wayne Pitcher moved, Jim Matthews seconded, affirmed by consensus.
Jim Matthews moved, Marcia Corcoran seconded. Affirmed by consensus.
Sandra put on the agenda, she put certain actions on the agenda (based on the minutes).
The first of those items was to update the core membership of the committee. Sandra and Ken are now
authorized to access the website, as well as Bella Witt. They will be bringing the list (membership) up to
date. Various attendees corrected various items. Kathy Kelley asked whether the currently vacant
positions should be filled. Some people suggested yes. Others suggested that we use the vacancies to
balance representation. Becky voiced a concern that we don’t have many student services representatives,
even though this is a committee of committees. Becky volunteered to be a senate rep, and Andrew did as
well. Yvonne said that she would reach out to classified.
(Computer crashed at this point, so large chunk is missing on charter/membership discussion.
Next topic: Strategic Plan. Sandra asked if there would be time to discuss this on Flex Day. Christy
provided an overview of Flex Day. General session from 9-10 a.m., followed by Division time from 10-
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noon. Staff Development Committee recommends that Program Review be introduced in the 10-12 block
in a smaller, more casual format. Need to ensure that this information also gets to Student Services and
Administrative Services. District presentation from 8-9 a.m. Lunch from noon-1, and workshops from
1-3.
Feedback from PRBC was positive on the concept of introducing Program Review in divisions and other
smaller groups. Trish suggested that we specifically invite more representatives from Student Services
and Administrative Services to the PRBC meeting when we review the final forms so they are prepared
for their division meetings.
Jennifer questioned if our plan also includes Student Services and Admin Services updates to Program
Review. Response was yes. Discussion ensued about forms. For Admin Services, almost all units will
have to submit complete Program Review as so few were submitted last year. For Student Services, the
budget spreadsheet will be the same as for Academic areas. Jan asked if we need to update SAO’s in this
cycle.
There was general discussion about the purpose of Administrative Services Program Review, and the role
of this evaluation in accreditation. Jim: we can make this whatever we want. There are no rules.
Accreditation is looking for evidence of evaluation.
Tram suggested a separate meeting to discuss which “units” will need to complete the Admin Services
Program Review.
Back to the Strategic Plan.
Sandra: At our last meeting, Christy asked about our guiding principles, or the criteria for evaluation of
Program Review. The general consensus was that while many factors were important, the strategic plan
is a key guide. Sandra distributed strategic plan documents (please include in minutes, or attach).
Jim: Is this a rolling 3-year plan, or does it expire in 2015? Sandra: It expires in 2015, and at that point
we’ll need to create a new plan. But, we do revisit the initiatives every year. Christy: Thanks, that
answers my question on criteria for distributing funds. Jan: The goal stays in place for 3 years. The
strategies probably have a 3-year “shelf life”, meaning you wouldn’t expect them to change every year.
But, it might be wise to revisit them. The initiatives definitely need to be revisited every year. Some
have morphed even over the past year. Perhaps for Program Review, we could put out the goal and the
strategies, and new initiatives might be proposed to support those strategies.
Tram: It’s important to also acknowledge/communicate that we have made progress over the past year.
And, some of the initiatives were clearly multi-year; we didn’t think we would accomplish them in just
one year.
Marcia: The beauty of the strategic plan is that it’s just one goal. The strategies seem to be ordered in a
logical sequence of pre-college, entry, getting students ready for college work, engagement, and exit.
Trish: Title 3 grant funding decisions were driven by grant goals, Program Review and strategic plan
initiatives. Many of the initiatives funded for this year came directly out of that effort. Should we
overlay that with the initiatives chart to show what was funded? Group: Yes, add a column. Trish: Note
that we’re requesting initiatives in Program Review that could be funded in 14-15, not this year.
Jan: Unless some of those new initiatives don’t require funding.
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Tram: It’s important to report out to the college how these funding decisions are being made.
Jennifer: Connect back to the PRBC meeting at the end of last year where we defined what we
accomplished, which were only partially accomplished, and work that still needs to be done. And, we
need to check in on all of the initiatives to see where we stand. Jan: Will provide the list of leaders to
Sandra.
Carolyn: It’s important to note that PRBC just provides the frame, and the initiatives can come from
anywhere, as long as they’re included in Program Review. Perhaps as long as they support the strategic
plan goal? Tram/Jennifer: It’s also probably important that they support the strategies, as these defined
general areas of focus—the key areas that we thought could help us to achieve the goal if we focused our
efforts and resources.
Jim: Have we reviewed the college planning agenda that came out of our last Accreditation? There were
90+ items that we said we would work on.
Yvonne: Also remember that last year we identified a ton of initiatives, and then “voted” on them at
PRBC to select those we would work on last year. We should probably do that again this year.
Christy: It’s important to articulate to the campus which areas we think are more important than others,
whether that be strategy areas or initiative areas, so that everyone knows what to focus on. So, we don’t
get dozens of initiatives in one area and none in another key area.
Jennifer: But we don’t really have any funding unless it fits in our grant goals. What we did last year
was more about how we invested our time.
Christy: I’m going to ask again, does the strategic plan guide funding decisions or not? We have money.
Are we distributing it based on our strategic plan or some other criteria or process?
Dale: Historically, we have allocated funding tactically, not strategically. We haven’t done a good job of
allocating funding strategically, and absent a huge new pot of money, we’ll probably continue to allocate
funding tactically.
Tram: The key is to have the strategic plan guide the work of committees, which is why it’s so important
to have committee chairs present. They need to participate in the discussion, to deeply understand it, and
to frame their work to support achievement of the plan.
Christy: We really need to clarify the connection between funding and the strategic plan.
Yvonne and others: It’s equally important to have the strategic plan shape the priorities and work of our
committees.
Trish: Recap of last year’s Prop 30 discussion and the establishment of criteria and how that was carried
through in Program Review. It’s important, since we still have such constrained FTEF, that we try to
really focus any “spare” FTEF to things that will really help us to achieve our Strategic Plan goal.
Marcia: There is a real connection between the strategic plan and funding, for example work underway in
the HPN grant on assessment.
Tom: Every college has a problem with connecting planning and resource decisions. It’s difficult to
make big decisions since almost all of our funding is people costs. Instead, we’re starting to think about
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how we can change the way we work together, the way we view our jobs, to enable us to make real
progress toward our strategic plan goal.
Tram: It would be great to have the committees discuss the strategic plan and set goals—to identify
things they could do to support the strategic plan goal. We did that last year, but we have many new
committee chairs. General consensus that this is a good idea.
Next topic: Program Review addendum draft and timeline (attach form to the minutes). Sandra: I’ve
updated last year’s timeline for 2014-15 and also 2015-16. I’ll also update the chart of where each
program stands in the 3-year program review cycle, and will send that out.
Dale: The due date of 12/6 may be too late for faculty prioritization.
Tram: But, if we have Dean’s summaries are due by 11/15, that’s probably solid enough information to
begin the faculty prioritization process.
Dale: The number of people to be hired will be based on the Faculty Obligation Number, which we don’t
have yet. But, we’ll have it fairly soon.
Yvonne: The classified staff request is missing.
Ken: It will be added in the final packet.
Jennifer: Many of the forms mention “looking at your data”. Is it the old data, or do we have new data?
Carolyn: We do have 12-13 data that we can post. We should let people know that there’s a new data set.
Jennifer: Comments on other changes to forms. Example: do we need to change F8 to revise/eliminate
the blurb about $18 million of available facilities budget? Isn’t there a new technology request form?
Deonne: I’m going to propose a “rolling computer lab”—a cart with 25 laptops that can be rolled from
class to class. It would be great if others also requested it.
Jan: Also, we need to include the Excel spreadsheet that summaries all of the requests. We forgot to
include that last year.
Carolyn: I’m postponing to next week a discussion about the IR Research Agenda for this year and how
that supports PRBC. Brief update on the student survey that’s in development, which asks some
questions about student governance. The Spring survey of faculty/staff will ask questions about broader
college governance.
Meeting adjourned at 4:58 p.m.