EL CAMINO COLLEGE
Planning & Budgeting Committee
Minutes
April 21, 2005
MEMBERS PRESENT
David Vakil, Chair
Miriam Alario - ECCE
Dawn Reid - Mgmt/Supervisors
Cheryl Shenefield - Admin. Services
Harold Tyler - Student & Comm. Adv.
Susan Taylor - ECCFT
Lance Widman – Academic Senate
OTHERS ATTENDING
Patricia Caldwell – Staff Support
Alex Kelley – Staff Support
Mike D’Amico – Staff Support
Arvid Spor – Staff Support
Pamela Fees – Staff Support
Billy Wilson – Alternate, ASO
Donna Grogan – Alternate, Academic Senate
Handouts
1. State Budget Update #4 – April 14, 2005
2. Culinary Arts and Similar Programs
David Vakil called the meeting to order at 1:03 p.m.
Note: David Vakil will ensure that all handouts are provided to committee members who may be
absent. Information will be sent either electronically or via campus mail. It was further suggested
that presenters provide an electronic version of material to the chair of PBC and the information can
then be sent to committee members electronically.
Lance Widman thanked everyone for volunteering him for the Q-Builder review sub-committee.
Approval of Minutes
The Minutes of April 7, 2005, were approved with the following corrections:
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Page 2, paragraph 5, change last sentence to read do not make the process go faster than you
are comfortable dealing with it.
Susan Taylor suggested bringing the top 20-25 vice presidents’ choices and then
looking at those below the top choices.
Page 3, point 9, Alex Kelley said that PBC should periodically come up with specific topics
that apply such as technology support for faculty. Lance Widman questioned the topic and
felt it would be the job of the Technology Committee. Dawn Reid said that sometimes there
are requests that improve technology that need to be made known to ITS.
It was moved by Harold Tyler, seconded by Lance Widman, and accepted by the committee to
approve the minutes as corrected.
Conference Report and Follow-up
Arvid Spor and David Vakil attended a conference of the Chief Information Systems Officers
Association (CISOA) and made a presentation on how ECC is linking planning and budgeting. It
was attended by information technology administrators and research and planning individuals.
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During their presentation, they described why there is a need for the committee to make planning/
budgeting decisions, although they heard opposing opinions. A primary objection to ECC’s method
was that, when you have a lot of people in the room, you get a lot of people trying to plug individual
agendas. It was noted, however, that “this is called shared governance”. Miriam Alario said there
were not that many situations in the past that the vice presidents and PBC had a lot of different
views.
Other things that came up at the conference: How is the college really going to rank planning and
budgeting with a California budget and not knowing whether money will be there when it is
needed? It is difficult to set aside funds for every year with uncertain California budgets.
Another point that came up, Southwest L.A. College has had the same problems of program review
that ECC has. They solved it by putting the process on the web and giving people a small stipend to
enter and review it. Their process was completed in about 6 months and is available for
consultation.
David Vakil noted that researchers are good people to have, they can help answer questions you
don’t know to ask. Recruiting may be difficult. It was mentioned that ECC might get a research
student coming out of a graduate program or a doctoral program. One current Q-builder request is
to fund the research office, including a research analyst, planning analyst, director, and clerical
support. Salaries and benefits cover expenses of $302,531/year.
Process to Prioritize Q-builder Reports
PBC’s process currently is as follows:
Have sub-committee review requests;
Have vice presidents make their recommendations on Q-builder requests;
Have the full PBC go through them and then refine; as new plans and/or sources become
available, perhaps review those on a monthly basis;
After a list of priorities from each, get together and come to consensus.
Student and Community Advancement has 30-40 requests, Administrative Services 30-33, and it is
anticipated that Academic Affairs may have up to 150. These include staffing requests. Some
staffing is for replacements, some staffing is for new positions.
Administrative Services has looked at funding each of the goals to be certain an effort is being made
under all the goals and not concentrating on a single goal.
Pat Caldwell said the vice presidents looked at projects to see if they really addressed the goals
stated in the requests, pointing out that the mission and goal are supposed to drive the process.
Mandated programs do not necessarily meet the goals. In response to a question, all planning
funding will be out of the General Fund-Unrestricted.
Q-builder Requests Dealing with Staffing
The vice presidents gave Tom Fallo a list of open vacancies that they would like to have filled.
Vice presidents are meeting with managers to come up with priorities to be filled. It was suggested
that PBC could separately look at requests that are not purely staff related.
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Regarding staffing, a question was raised about what if you cannot hire in the term, if a position is
approved and not filled. Pat Caldwell said she had a position that did not get filled and she had to
go back on the priority list because such positions do not automatically roll over. The reason for
this is that a new vacancy could take higher priority than an older one. This year, not all positions
were filled because it was decided to tier them rather than hiring all at one time.
Dawn Reid asked if PBC will receive a complete list of all staffing requests from the vice
presidents’ divisions. The response was that it would not include new positions, and that the list
will include all projects on which the vice presidents agreed. Also, faculty positions are in Qbuilder and faculty hiring for 2005-06 is already prioritized. It was suggested that perhaps a process
could be developed where this body might make recommendations to consider faculty positions.
This goes to the Academic Senate and they would have to agree to the process.
It was decided that the sub-committee will look at Q-builder proposals that are in the pool and do
not concern staffing vacancies. Approximately half of the Q-builder proposals concern such vacant
(but previously approved) positions. The other half of the proposals include anything that is not
“fill this old position”. Previously, the sub-committee was going to look at everything, but now old
positions will be handled separately, starting with vice presidents’ recommendations. The subcommittee will then sort requests into 3-4 categories: top, bottom, and middle. The full PBC will
likely not need to discuss the top or bottom, but rather will focus their attention on the middle tier.
Pat Caldwell suggested using the matrix on the proposals that are in the middle.
Lance Widman asked for the time line. Originally there was discussion of waiting to see how much
money is available for the projects. Since this will not be known before the May Revise, the
process will continue.
Originally it was decided to look at information individually without first knowing the ranking of
the vice presidents. Lance Widman would like to see the vice presidents’ listing before the subcommittee meets.
David Vakil proposed that not all 5 people need to review all 75 proposals. He proposed that each
person review some proposals but that there be a few proposals evaluated by more than one person
to get an idea of like thinking. It was pointed out that a process similar to this is used when
reviewing grants. With grants, it is also not uncommon to have all reviewers start by reviewing one
proposal together, to establish some guidelines.
Arvid Spor will send copies of the Q-Builder requests to David Vakil for distribution.
Planning and Budgeting in California
During the CISOA Conference, it was noted that schools cannot anticipate revenue. When
opportunities and unanticipated revenue come up, schools are told what was done and asked to
adjust accordingly. VTEA was mentioned as a specific example where this can be challenging, as it
is for other restricted funds.
The question for PBC is how to handle these uncertainties as part of the planning and budgeting
process. Similarly, if a major chunk of money is received (e.g., movie studio, gifts through the
Foundation), how is this process integrated into planning? Information needs to be provided and a
process developed. Currently, ECC does not budget unanticipated funds. For example, money
from Paramount became known before the budget was completed, not a regular expectation.
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A concern mentioned was that, if a process is developed to include unanticipated funds into the
plan, what assurances does PBC have that the process will be followed, rather than using the
unanticipated funds for other (perhaps unknown) projects? Similarly, what if someone goes out for
a grant and receives it – how is the plan adjusted? And what happens if the grant does not fully
fund the project? How does PBC decide if a grant supersedes previously agreed-to plans? Similar
concerns arise with gifts made to or through the Foundation. Donna Grogan suggested to build a
review process into the overall planning and that the requests list be kept current. This begged the
question: at what point are new proposals invited?
Non-Agenda Items
Susan Taylor read excerpts from an article in the Daily Breeze regarding the new model for
equalization funding. According to the article, things are not as bleak (even for ECC) as the
committee was previously led to believe. At the start ECC would be fairly okay, but down the road
the college would not be positioned as well in the new model. The article mentions that no one will
end up with less money than they are receiving now.
Regarding basic skills funding, is ECC at its max and doing everything needed to report?
Everything is reported, and ECC is still below the “maintenance of effort” threshold to receive basic
skills funding.
Pam Fees distributed a handout from the Chancellor’s Office regarding equalization and funding of
$80 million recommended by the Department of Finance for equalization in the 2005-06 State
budget. There is strong urging that districts put more into non-credit programs to address the higher
number of adults without high school equivalency.
Increased tax revenues may have an effect on the State budget. This does not automatically
translate into more money for Prop 98 community college programs.
At the bottom of the handout, referencing SB 361, there is a funding mechanism being proposed.
The Community College League of California is really pushing districts to send in letters supporting
it. ECC is not part of that list. There is a lot of pressure to get behind it coming from the League.
The May 13 proposal for the May Revise is to be released. Report will be brief but not part of the
tentative budget at this time.
There are rumors about FTES. The next report is due April 30. People are in the process of pulling
information together and verifying with as many sources as can be contacted. The intention is to be
as realistic as possible.
Agenda Development
Approval of Minutes –April 21, 2005 – All PBC Participants
Feedback from sub-committee
Vice presidents’ priority lists available – Arvid Spor said these could take at least 2 weeks
Adjournment
Alex Kelley moved to adjourn at 2:30 p.m.
Recorder: Delores Buerger
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