Redwoods Community College District
Vice President, Chief Business Officer
FINANCIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE NOTES
Accreditation Response Workgroup
November 9, 2006
A workgroup was formed to begin the process of assisting the district with its response to our
accrediting commission’s request for a progress report on 4 recommendations. Our area of
focus relates to commission standards in Section IIID, Financial Resources.
Present
Ron Cox, Helen Edwards
Steering Committee
Here are the major points raised at the Steering Committee meeting on
11/1/06:
 Start with the March report content (do not refer to the March
report)
 The response should cover progress from October 2005 through
the present.
 The deadline for the first draft (and the end of the committee’s
work) is December 15, 2006.
 Jeff, Scott, and Ron will discuss the response to
Recommendation 6.
Recommendation 5
Standards for financial resources are mentioned prominently in
recommendation 5. The following are initial thoughts on scope and
content:
 A portion of this recommendation addresses the need for longrange planning regarding the development and allocation of
financial resources and maintenance of fiscal stability. It does
not suggest an actual plan be developed, but the development of a
planning process.
 We developed a 12-month action plan in March. In light of the
further development of our institutional planning efforts and a rereading of this recommendation, it appears that the action plan
needs some revision. Specifically, it may be appropriate to
deemphasize the development of a plan and address the ongoing
financial analysis needs for institutional decision making
consistent with other long-range planning efforts.
 Suggested revisions to the 12-month action plan will be drafted
for distribution by email to the FAC for comment. Our
documentation on best practices and stakeholder interest will also
need revision according.
 Even though our new (program review driven/data informed)
FINANCIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE NOTES
November 9, 2006
Page 2 of 3
institutional planning efforts have only just begun, we can still
make progress on two areas on our Best Practices List (Analyze
the Current/Future Economic Environment and Explore
Resources Available or for Potential Development).
Recommendation 6
This recommendation deals strictly with financial resource standard
IIID.2c. It has not been addressed previously by the FAC. As noted
above, Jeff has indicated he would like to discuss our response to this
recommendation with Scott and Ron. This has not yet taken place.
However, here are some initial thoughts:
 Unlike the previous recommendation, this one suggests the
development of a plan. The primary emphasis is the achievement
and maintenance of financial stability. Key elements to be
addressed are declining FTES (and therefore, revenue), a prudent
reserve balance, and annual expenditures in line with available
resources.
 Because we currently have a structural imbalance with declining
FTES, revenue, and reserves, any plan adopted by the district
could be of immediate benefit. This could be viewed as a
financial recovery plan of sorts.
 The primary element of financial stability is the matching of
ongoing expenditures with ongoing revenues. Before committing
to any new ongoing expenditures, uncommitted ongoing revenues
need to be identified to pay for them. One-time revenues should
be used for one-time expenditures. Ongoing and one-time
revenues need to be estimated based (in part) on projections of
FTES. The state provides stability funding for one year for a
district to adjust to declining revenues from declining FTES.
 Our plan needs to include FTES and revenue projections together
with ongoing expenditure cuts to the level of our revenues or
below (to build our reserves to a prudent level). Once a target
level of expenditure cuts or additional revenue development has
been identified, two basic things could take place. First, a list of
potential solutions could to be compiled and evaluated for
financial impact and feasibility. Next, the potential solutions
could be prioritized and selected for implementation. When it
has been determined how we will do these steps, we could have
the basis for a plan. Finally, we may want to include an ongoing
analysis component to track how effective our solutions are and
whether any of our projections need updating.
FINANCIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE NOTES
November 9, 2006
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Follow-up
Here are some additional follow-up ideas that could be pursued:
 Tracking Other Planning Efforts – It was suggested that
individual working meetings with Program Review, Facilities,
and Technology would be helpful.
 Evidence – While to some extent we may need to describe how
we plan to implement the recommendations of the Commission
in the future, any progress made to date and cited needs to be
adequately documented. We need to compile a list of evidence
that is already available and evidence that could be developed in
the time available.
 Best Practices – While an initial survey was conducted of other
institutions for best practices, we did not check with colleges that
have recently renewed their accreditation under the new
standards. We could start with the ACCJC web site.
 Outlook Folders – We need to both post our progress and review
the progress of others by reference to Public folders in Outlook.