Board of Trustees Report
West Los Angeles College
January 11, 2012
Finance and Audit Committee
The session began with another report from KPMG, our bond auditors. Their most
striking finding was that around $4 million (in two separate projects) had been incorrectly
assigned to Measure J rather than Prop A/AA accounts. Both Scott Svonkin and Nancy
Pearlman (Steve Veres arrived later) asked why this happened and who was
responsible. Tom Hall said there had been an error four to five years ago that wasn’t
caught until last year. Controls have since been put in place so that this shouldn’t occur
again. Another trustee concern was the long time it was taking to transfer nine years of
BuildLACCD’s FF&E information to SAP. It will take another year to complete the job,
which neither trustee was happy about, given that BuildLACCD has been aware of the
problem since they started in 2007.
Adriana Barrera and Jim Watson, our contracts manager, presented the committee with
a draft of a chancellor’s directive regarding green and local purchasing. It provides a
minimum threshold in both areas with the goal of reducing our carbon footprint.
Pearlman asked for more specifics and initially wanted to see someone designated to
oversee the process. She later acceded, however, to Svonkin’s suggestion that the
directive move forward as presented, with the understanding that training would be
provided to staff as the need arose. Svonkin would like to see the directive become
Board policy.
Food services was discussed briefly, with an agreement to have a panel presentation at
the next meeting, detailing services currently being provided at the colleges, their
financial status, and college plans for the future. Svonkin reiterated his interest in looking
at the revenue generation potential of food services and assessing the financial
advantage of having a single district contract.
A discussion of the General Counsel Office’s staffing and operations followed. Camille
Goulet reviewed the selection of outside counsel for non-bond legal work, including ways
of encouraging small firms to apply as well as fee totals, which have increased a great
deal in recent years. Svonkin explained that the committee would like to see the total
cost of the OGC, not just that of the outside firms. Also, Veres suggested a consideration
of whether some of the office’s work should be done by someone else. As it’s currently
structured, Goulet’s office does both the selection and the evaluation of outside firms,
and Veres said alternatives to that might allow for more perspective and balance. The
chancellor asked that his office take a first pass at assessing OGC operations and the
trustees were amenable to that. Svonkin said he was troubled by the big jump in legal
fees and settlements in the last year. Goulet said such jumps are often a factor of the
economy, with tough times leading to more cases. Cases have doubled in the past year,
for example. Veres asked about risk management staffing as a cost-saving step. No one
is currently working in this capacity, though a position is about to be filled.
Finally, there was a short discussion about the benefit of doing a review of the
effectiveness of our bond sale process. $5 billion in bonds have already been sold, with
about $1 billion remaining. Svonkin asked if an independent firm should review these
sales to see how they might be done better in the future. Jeanette Gordon and staff were
asked to prepare a statement of what an RFP for this service would look like.
Open Session
President Nabil Abu-Ghazaleh welcomed the Board and introduced his staff and faculty
and classified leaders.
All five of us at the Resource Table expressed concern about the proposed contract
extension to 2014 for six college presidents and three senior staff members. I mentioned
that the district had a more than ten-year history of soliciting faculty and staff comments
in comprehensive evaluations of presidents and that to extend these contracts without
such input would be a very disturbing development. Joanne Waddell said such a step
would not "enhance clarity and transparency." Others echoed our comments briefly,
noting that they wanted to say more when the item was up for debate. This was the first
time in my experience that all representatives spoke on the same issue with the same
concerns. The trustees had no comment in response.
David Horn, claiming to be a community representative, urged the Board to change the
current at-large voting for trustee positions in favor of district voting (that is, by regions
within the LACCD area). He said he was urging this now due to new state legislation in
this regard. No further details were provided, nor was a reply given.
Mary Kaufman, claiming to be an "equestrian representative” from the neighborhood
around Pierce, criticized a new lease bid process for a twenty-acre portion of the
campus farm. She said the current occupant was doing a good job and she didn't see
any reason to change the situation. No response was given, but the matter was
addressed later in the meeting.
Nothing was reported out of Closed Session.
Steve Svonkin gave a summary of the morning Finance and Audit Committee meeting
(see above).
The chancellor reviewed the district's priorities for 2012. It wasn't clear how these were
determined, but they included work in the following six areas:
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the strategic plan
accreditation
Achieving the Dream
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budget development
bond management
financial development (foundations)
He said the strategic plan was essential and briefly reviewed the work of the Strategic
Plan Committee. Regarding the budget, he mentioned the allocation model proposal that
the DBC Exec will be presenting to the DBC next week. He called attention to the new
Citizen's Oversight Committee annual report and reviewed the three reasons for a
moratorium, conceding that not all trustees agreed that a full-year hiatus was necessary.
He spent much of his time highlighting features of the Independent Review Panel report
on the bond program, which was distributed to the trustees and everyone else in
attendance. He lauded the selfless work of the panel and said they had reviewed a
"voluminous" number of documents and interviewed many. They have made over fifteen
recommendations. They argue the need for the following:
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a moratorium on new projects
a reserve account
an M&O budget
more and diverse audit procedures
more centralization of the program
a reconsideration of the role of shared governance
better financial management (the heart of the report, he said)
greater certainty about the energy program's financial goals
greater program integrity
West LA professors then made a short presentation about the use of emerging
technologies in the classroom (Nancy Sander described how her students used flip
cameras in an ESL class.) Vice President Bob Sprague noted the $8 million in grants
awarded recently to West, with another $7 million pending. Abu-Ghazaleh said the new
Student Services Building was set to open finally in a few weeks, after a year-long delay.
Miguel Santiago detailed the numerous steps the Board has taken in the last year and a
half to fix the problems with the bond program. He said the district had "turned the
corner."
The Consent Calendar was approved unanimously, after the contract extension proposal
was pulled out. Kathleen Burke-Kelly and Camille Goulet answered questions about the
Pierce farm issue to the Board's satisfaction, and there was a further discussion about
"no conflict of interest" declaration forms.
The contract extension proposal debate began with a motion from Veres to move the
completion date up one year, from June, 2014, to June, 2013. He also added a
stipulation that comprehensive evaluations (that is, ones including faculty and staff input)
be conducted. In response, Kelly Candaele angrily listed all the steps the Board had
taken in support of unions and decried what he saw as a "process fetish." He pointedly
asked the chancellor whether the extensions to the original dates were a "foundational
matter” for him, and LaVista replied that it was. Svonkin, on the other hand, said the
Board would not be doing its job if it didn't insist on comprehensive evaluations. Tina
Park, noting that no president had had a comprehensive evaluation since 2009, said
they were necessary, adding that no insult was intended to anyone. The chancellor
insisted that the amendment was wrong. He said that the Board had agreed to his
process earlier, and that the claim that ACCJC required comprehensive evaluations was
false. Veres replied that the Board just "can't wait so long to evaluate." Some of us
attempted to speak from the Resource Table but Santiago did not allow us to do so,
even though three trustees and the chancellor expressed a desire to hear from us.
The vote was 4-2-1 in favor of the amendment: Veres, Santiago, Park, and Svonkin in
support, Candaele and Field against, Pearlman abstaining. The senior staff date was
then changed from December, 2014, to December, 2013, by another 4-2-1 vote, with the
same vote breakdown.
The request for step increases was dealt with separately. Field argued that these were
comparable to routine faculty step increases, but Svonkin saw them as something to be
earned. The vote here was 4-3 in favor of the increases, with Park and Veres joining
Candaele and Field in voting yes. Santiago, Pearlman, and Svonkin voted no.
The Accreditation self-study reports for the Seaside colleges were approved
unanimously.
In closing announcements, Monte Perez, informed the Board of the recent deaths of two
long time Mission faculty members, Mohammed Elkerdany and Julie Ruelas.
I noted that the next meeting would be my last as DAS president, with Don Gauthier
replacing me as of Feb. 1. I also complained that the Board's own meeting policy
procedures explicitly called for comments from the Resource Table during the debate of
Board items and that failure to allow for that was damaging.
Comment
Chancellor LaVista has already been here a year and a half, and there has been almost
no evaluation input solicited in that time. We discussed with him in November the need
to do formal evaluations of the presidents and the vice presidents, and he was amenable
to setting up a process for both. That made this proposal surprising. There is just no way
to defend giving further extensions without faculty and staff input. While four presidents
are fairly new (with an interim at East), that leaves four, as well as the senior staff and
vice presidents.
Probably Miguel Santiago wanted to avoid embarrassment for the chancellor, but this
isn’t the first time we’ve had this problem. In any case, the Board should follow its own
rules.
David