EL CAMINO COLLEGE
Planning & Budgeting Committee
Minutes
November 17, 2005
MEMBERS PRESENT
__x__David Vakil, Chair
_____Miriam Alario
__x__Thomas Jackson
__x__Susan Taylor
DRAFT
__x__Harold Tyler
__x__Lance Widman
__x__Kelvin Lee
OTHERS ATTENDING: Mike D’Amico, Moon Ichinaga, Maria Lopez, John Wagstaff, Donna
Post, Luis Mancia, Claudia Striepe, Pam Fees, Jeff Marsee, Christine Cho, Arvid Spor, Susan
Dever, Jim Noyes.
Handouts:
The ECC Library Budget: A Statement of Concerns (November, 2005)
2005-06 Academic Software Prioritization
Lance Widman’s Adjustments to 11/3 Minutes
The meeting was called to order at 1:05 pm by David Vakil.
Approval of Minutes:
The minutes were approved as amended.
Library Materials Budget Proposals: The group discussed the handout (The ECC Library Budget:
A Statement of Concerns (November, 2005)). Noted:
 The Library used to be a line item in the budget until 2002. Now they are totally dependant
upon the block grant. As a result, Library resources are deteriorating, and they need to
rebuild the collection. Currently they are only allocated $300 for the year.
 They are asking for the following:
1. Reinstate the Library as a line item in the budget. Non-permanent sources of funding
puts the Library at risk.
2. Consider making a recommendation to increase Library book funds for 2005-2006.
 It was announced that the Board of Trustees will be asked to approve $50,000 for the
Library. In December, there will also be another allocation of $50,000 for special projects.
Funds will come from Community Advancement and will go into the budget after Board
approval.
 Group members asked why this was not brought to the PBC. Members were angry that
there was no plan to inform the PBC about this, reinforcing a past history of decisions being
made outside the PBC and never coming to the group except by accident.
 Bond refunding and how to spend the extra money is an issue also.
 The $300 for the Library was part of the rollover of expenditures from a specific account
number. It reflects actual expenditures in 2004-2005, which are now known to be $1,500.
 Rollover budgets are supposed to be the previous year’s budget, not the previous year’s
expenditures. This was the first time the rollover budget was based on expenditures. This
practice is called a lump sum rollover. (Term is boldfaced to help develop a PBC user’s
manual.)
 The vice presidents are now looking at prior year budgets. They are working on a number
of problems, including consistent overruns and the lack of a position control report.
 This year they will be doing zero-based budgeting. This means no rollovers.
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The group wants to revisit the Library line item issue for 2006-07 when it comes time for
budgeting. It will let the librarians know when to come back (probably in January).
Other Issues for the 20076-2007 budget:
 Health center
 Use of summer FTES
 Library
 International Students’ program
 GASB (The Insurance Benefits Committee (IBC) will be making a recommendation)
Academic Software: The committee discussed the 2005-06 Academic Software Prioritization
document which was provided. It addresses immediate needs (for this year) and long term needs
(i.e. creating a line item for annual/ongoing software expenditures to provide stable annual
funding). Noted:
 The PBC has, in the past, recommended a line item. It recommended $400,000 for
academic software but only got $126,000. Of that, only $75,000 was spent last year.
 Academic software was purchased from Fund 12 last year, not the Information Technology
Services (ITS) accounts. ITS money was spent on upgrading, firmware, etc., not academic
software. It is assumed this was to support the academic process.
 Funding for academic software doesn’t have a regular source; it is just scraped together from
different accounts. Those who can buy the software from their own division budgets. The
feeling is that they have been operating at a minimal critical level for some time now.
 Dr. Arce will allocate $50,000 from the block grant (approximately $400k) to the Library.
The remainder of the block grant will be allocated to academic areas, and some of this will
be for academic software. See also the next bullet.
 Dr. Arce, after consultation with the deans, makes the decisions on who gets the block grant
money (except as noted above), based on equipment request lists he gets from the divisions.
 Community Advancement transferred a 2nd $100,000 (it used to only transfer $100,000) to
the General Fund. Of this 2nd $100,000, $50,000 will be given to the library and the other
$50,000 to special projects (decision to be made by Dr. Baker).
 It is important to maintain the software contracts because of the consequences of not doing
so. The college also needs to be in compliance with ADA for software.
 In the past, software was purchased from supplies and equipment accounts. When the bond
was passed, computers were updated but there was no vehicle to purchase academic
software. This needs to be a regular line item in the budget.
 In an effort to centralize the process, they (ITS, Academic Technology Committee) are
trying to pull together a picture of what annual costs should be.
 Some software items are needed by December 1. For immediate needs, a purchase order
should be initiated through John Wagstaff, who will send it to Dr. Arce. $155,000 is the
estimate for top priorities.
 Academic software and an equipment replacement schedule should be put on the list of
2006-07 budget items. Software has been attempted to be included in the equipment
requests.
Planning/Budgeting: Themes & Next Steps:
Two areas of retention:
1. marketing and recruiting
2. getting people to stay
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Themes/Next Steps:
 Make successful persistence the highest priority, but don’t delete the others.
 How many students (%) flunk out and why?
 Define something that can be measured.
 Statewide standards and statewide testing. One size fits all.
 Student progress (movement toward goal), success and persistence were the agreed
upon central theme(s).
 Discretionary funds used for Q-builder proposals that are related to these themes
may be given extra priority.
 Since this process is new, re-evaluate after the year is over.
It was noted that input is needed by December 17th on revisions to Title 5 (from Steven Bruckman)
regarding the reporting of summer FTES. In the proposed revisions, if the total reported FTES
numbers affect other districts, the Chancellor will have the authority to dictate how summer FTES
is reported.
Agenda Development:
 Program review
 Staffing level – too low (Miriam?)
 Model for 05-06 budgeting (Jeff)
 Finalize themes
Meeting adjourned at 2:30 p.m.
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