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>> Vice Chair Rayl: Good evening, everyone. I’d like to call to order the August 18,
2011, meeting of the Board of Trustees of Johnson County
Community College. And I’ll start by entertaining a motion
– we need to amend the agenda – and I’ll just refer collectively to the amendments
that I’m proposing. One is an addition to the Management Committee
reports and recommendations involving construction manager at risk services for the Culinary
Center. The second is an additional amendment to the
Management Committee reports and recommendations involving our official newspaper, and the
third is the removal from the Human Resources reports
and recommendations of Board Policy 411.01, the
Nondiscrimination Policy. >> Trustee Cook: I will move those changes.
>> Trustee Drummond: Second. >> Vice Chair Rayl: And we have a motion and
a second, any discussion? All those in favor, please
say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion passes. And with that, we’ll begin with the Pledge
of Allegiance.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 2
>> All: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic
for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. >> Vice Chair Rayl: And I’ll defer to Terri
Schlicht for our roll call and recognition of visitors.
>> Terri Schlicht: This evening’s visitors include Mr. Richard Schroeder and Miss Ann
Arnaud. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you. And that brings
us to our first session, first of two sessions of
petitions and communications. The petitions and communications section of the board agenda
is a time for members of the community to provide to
the board comments. Comments are limited to five
minutes, unless a significant number of people plan to speak, in which case we may limit
a person’s comments to less than five minutes. Presenters
may choose to speak at the first or second petitions
communication session, but not both. Prior to beginning comments, we ask that you state
your name, address, city and state. And with that in
mind, would anyone like to address the board at this time?
Seeing none, we’ll move on to awards and recognitions, and do we have any awards and
recognitions tonight?
>> Dr. Grove: Trustee Rayl, we do not, but with the advent of our new academic year,
we anticipate plenty in the future.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you. And if we can move along this quickly all night we’ll
have you out of here by about 6:00. (laughter) That moves
us to our college lobbyist report and Mr. Carter.
>> *** Carter: I’ll certainly do my best to keep things moving along. I always like
to dispense with the bad news first, and go to good news and
just go to news. The bad news is, I was notified today, for
the fifth time in as many years, that I did not receive the practice round tickets for
the Masters drawing in early spring, so I will be here delivering
my report in May and just thought that was probably some of
the worst news that I’ve heard today. The good news is that our 5-year-old started kindergarten
and came home on Tuesday and announced that he
wanted to go back, so that indeed is probably the best
news of the week. (laughter) That’s all free, by the way.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 3
Not a lot has been going on, and that may sound repetitious from last month’s report
as well. Legislators have been traveling over the summer
months to their various national conferences – ALEC,
NCSL and CSG are all three associations that legislators attend. There are national conferences
across the United States. That’s where they pick
up a lot of the ideas that are bubbling up across the nation as
far as some of the things that we’ll see come before the legislature in bill form.
And so, many of the legislators are engaged in that and returning
from those travels and the interim committees that we have
to deal with have yet to really get under way. We have been dealing with the redistricting
town hall meetings and later on in the report just discusses
the upcoming meeting that will be held here on campus
on September 2 for this particular part of the state. I put a lengthy diatribe, if you
will, about the tax discussion and the tax policy debate that
will ensue. And it’s beginning already, and we’re beginning to
see bits and pieces in the national news as well. So it’s not just in our state; however,
the governor has made it very clear that he intends to engage
in a very robust tax policy debate, and we’re anticipating
considerable change being proposed. The House is still intent on not renewing,
or I should say some House members are still intent on not
renewing the one-cent sales tax that was passed a couple of years ago. I say not renewing
because we’re now past the point where we could actually
pull that back. I suppose it’s possible, but we’re now upon
the third year where some of that money comes off and the rest of the one cent stays to
pay for the transportation plan. That will be an interesting
part of the mix, as will the governor’s intent to reduce or
eliminate income – personal income and corporate income tax. Again, will be a significant shift
in the way we think about how we get our revenue
in the state of Kansas, and what that means for the overall
economy. Especially since we’re now towards the end of the week where the markets are
on their way back down and pundits are predicting yet another
recession. This will all be taken into account as
legislators engage in that dialogue over the course of the fall and into the legislative
session. You add to that mix the Senate Bill 1 which is still
out there which contains what I call the TABOR-lite or the
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 4
lookback provision, where expenditures are capped at a threshold year and are not – the
state budget is not allowed to go beyond that amount in years
where there is a surplus – those dollars are returned
through income tax rebates or reduction in income tax liabilities. Those are all significant
pieces of an equation that we’ve really never had a dialogue
at the legislative level before, and I think you will begin
to see comments in the paper that are at the far end of the spectrum on both sides. And
to begin with, I included a quote from the governor’s budget
director that appeared in the Wichita Eagle where he was
speaking to a group of Republicans at a luncheon where he says, “I would ask some of you
who are a little impatient, we didn’t move fast enough
to wait for this next budget and see if you’re getting more of
what you want.” I think that gives you a sense as to the times we’re moving into
as 2012 rolls around and we start the legislative process again.
The governor has a task force that’s been meeting, little is known about it. There are
people from his cabinet that are on it, we believe that there
are other people meeting with that group as well. That group
is essentially going to be responsible for formulating some of that tax policy discussion,
and it’s a little concerning at this point that we’re not
exactly aware of what that plan looks like – we get bits and pieces
and I’ve tried to lay out as much as we know for your discussion here. And again,
this report is not an indicator that taxes should be raised, lowered
or otherwise. It’s simply to lay the information that we
know out there so that you have the information at hand as you make some of the fiscal decisions
that you need to make here at the college.
I mentioned a little bit about the redistricting process. We’ve had six meetings thus far,
there are eight to go. And again, the one held on this
campus will be September 2 at 4:30 over in the Polsky
Theatre, and I will be over here for that event. I expect that particular session to
be more about some of the state and local districts, rather the
state districts vs. the congressional districts. Although that will be
a big portion of what the meeting is all about. August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 5 The Board of Regents has just completed their
annual retreat, it’s something they do every August.
For the first time in a number of years, or at least as many as many folks can remember,
the governor attended a portion of the retreat with the
appointment of three new regents. I think he wants to assure
folks that he is aware of the role that higher education plays in the economy and training
the workforce. They spent some time talking about raising
the academic standards at the institutions, and I think the
reason that that’s important to us is that if the discussion of increasing admission
standards begins to take a foot, that could mean additional students
at the community college and technical college level.
And I’m not sure how well positioned the technical colleges and community colleges
are at that table at things like the retreat that just occurred.
The university presidents come in, they have a day to meet with
the board. It’s important that if we’re going to be talking about a system, and a
system that is impacted by some of those decisions, that everyone
be at the table, and I’m sure Dr. Calaway may have some
additional comments about that as it relates to the Association of Community College Trustees.
The last thing that’s on your report, and I have a couple of other comments before I
close, is that Congress is on its summer break. You’ve
probably been to some events where some of the delegates
have either been holding town hall meetings or been at various functions. There is a call
for some to, by some, for the President to call Congress back
to continue to work on the debt issues. We now know who
the members of the Super Committee are, the 12 members that will be deciding the fate
of the $1.5 trillion cut that is on the table. They have
until Thanksgiving to produce some committee work, and
Congress has until December 23 to accept or pass or adopt the work of the committee and
pass something on for the President’s signature.
If that doesn’t occur, then there will be some across-theboard
cuts at the federal level, the magnitude of which we don’t exactly know how that’s
going to fall out, if it’s going to be across the board
evenly, if some will bear the burden more than others.
Finally, two things. One is the legislative breakfasts. We are planning on doing those
a little bit earlier, or at least starting them a little
bit earlier than last year. Presently Debbie Drake is working on
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 6
nailing down some dates in mid-November as well as early December, so that we can kind
of break that period up and not worry about the weather
so much. We’ll also be looking to do a lunch meeting in
addition to the breakfast meetings – this is all based on feedback that we’ve gotten
from many of the legislators who attend. And then, finally…and
so we’ll get those dates to you the minute we know what
they are…and then finally, some things to consider, that this board may want to consider,
that we submit a request to the Board of Regents for a legislative
proposal dealing with the official notice. Trustee Rayl
mentioned the paper issue – the official notice issue – that is something that we’ve
dealt here in the past, it’s been a bill at the legislature. We
may want to take a more aggressive role on some form of whether
it’s electronic notice or addressing that issue because it is a problem, specifically
in this area, but across the state as well, as many papers are changing
the way they do business. I would stop there, Madame
Chairman, Mr. President. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you. Does anybody
have any discussion for Mr. Carter? >> Trustee Musil: Madame Chairman, I just,
I heard you say something I’ve heard early, which you
called it mini-TABOR, with this “March to Zero” proposal, where every dollar of new
revenues raised at the state level is placed into tax cuts, and
not allowed to be used by any unit of government that is
supported in any way by the state. >> *** Carter: That is our understanding.
>> Trustee Musil: And I’ve heard it called mini-TABOR and TABOR-lite. TABOR as I recall
it was to limit government growth and spending through
the growth in either the net income of families in
Kansas or the gross state product or something. But it allowed growth to serve people where
there’s a bigger population, a needier population, more
students or whatever. The “March to Zero” plan is not
mini-TABOR or TABOR-lite, it is maximum TABOR or TABOR-heavy. It would eliminate the ability
to spend one penny more on any government service if that’s imposed at the local and
state level. So I don’t want us to miss the boat and call
it mini-TABOR or TABOR-lite – it is worse than anything
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 7
proposed in the past. It eliminates the discretion of local units of government-elected officials
potentially to determine what spending needs there are.
If our enrollment goes up 2,000 students, we can’t spend a
dime more if the legislature imposes that on us. So, I just think it’s important that
we start now understanding and explaining and educating
to folks, that this plan which sounds like it’s all wonderful
tax cuts, which we all love, means we don’t spend a dime more on social service needs
in Kansas, prisons in Kansas, roads in Kansas. So I will
never call it mini-TABOR again, once I thought it through,
I will never call it TABOR-lite. And am I right in that general analysis of what is
intended? >> *** Carter: I think that is the general
intent, and I think that there are some mechanical changes
that are in the works right now with that program that make it more restrictive even
yet. There is no percentage of growth, as I understand the
way the bill is currently written. So I think that’s a fair
assessment. >> Trustee Musil: And making sure that doesn’t
apply to local units of government where local citizens have entrusted us to spend the money
wisely, I think, should be the number one goal. I don’t
think it’s a good public policy for the state, but to protect this college or the
city you live in or whatever, it needs to be examined very carefully.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Any other discussion for Mr. Carter?
>> Dr. Calaway: Madame Chairman, if I might? >> Vice Chair Rayl: Yes.
>> Dr. Calaway: Just to provide a couple of additional items to Mr. Carter’s presentation.
The community colleges also had a day, if you
will, with the Regents as part of their retreat, and in fact, I
represented as the chair of the President’s Council this year along with three other colleague
presidents – represented our college and the rest of the
association at the retreat as well. We had a very, very robust
conversation with the Regents related to our articulation and transfer issue. We had some
very, very good conversations around the importance of
that. One of the things that was really interesting, I think,
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 8
for the first time we had the Regents staff agree that the students who graduate from
Johnson County Community College and then move on and transfer
way to the universities are outperforming, using
Regent data. Our students, when they leave us and move onto the universities are outperforming
local students in their junior and senior years.
We had a very, very robust conversation around that and the
importance, then, of how we deal with articulation as a whole. A former trustee of our college,
Fred Logan, who is now a Regent-in-waiting, and
will be moving into that Regent’s role very, very soon, the
next several weeks, I guess… >> *** Carter: There’s a confirmation committee
hearing in two weeks, I believe. >> Dr. Calaway: …right, and has been appointed
by Chair McKechnie to serve as the Regents’ – as
he described it – “umpire” working with the community colleges and universities. But
at the end of the conversation, Chairman McKechnie informed
both the community colleges and the university CEOs
that, in fact, they have two main goals, and they didn’t place either higher than the
other, but one of their goals is to hire the president for Emporia
State, very important issue. Goal number 1A or B, but
certainly equal, is to finally solve this articulation transfer issue, to make sure
that transfer community college students is clear and seamless and
he was very clear in his…Chair McKechnie was very clear in
his comments that this is goal one for the Regents, so I think it’s great news for
our students, great recognition for our faculty. As a result of
some of that discussion around the good work that’s happening
on the part of our faculty, it just helps support our students be successful.
Vice-Chair Emert shared a story of his days that, as he described, 50 years ago, he was
a student at Independence Community College, and he said
he remembers as a student back when he was at
Independence Community College, that the whole discussion around articulation and transfer
was alive and well and very robust. And he said here
we are, 50 years later and now I’m a Regent, and we’re still
talking about it and we haven’t found a solution and his commitment was, we’re going
to find the solution before I leave the Board of Regents.
So side conversation after the meeting with the Regent-inAugust
18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 9 waiting Logan was that we’re going to get
this one done this year. So, we had a long conversation, as
well, around this is not a destination, it’s a journey. Once we find good, clean articulation,
it’s just the first step in making sure that we never fall
back to where we were. But I think it’ll be good news for
Johnson County students and community college students across the state. It’s a major
accomplishment to have the Regents say this is what is our
highest priority. So, it’s been a long, arduous road just to get
to where we are. I know Dr. Rhinehart represented us on the state-wide committee last year,
and I’ll be representing the college this year now in
the new group that will be taking on the task in phase two, so
we’re going to continue to put our skin into this one, but I think we’re going to
see some good solutions for our students. But it was really nice to
hear the Regents’ staff talk about the success of our students
once they get to the university level. >> Vice Chair Rayl: It’s heartening to hear
that there’s such a commitment and maybe it’ll finally
get done. At the end of the day it’s the students who are paying the price for the
lack of articulation and certainly, at the end it’s about student
success and so we need to make sure the emphasis is where it
should be, so hopefully they’ll follow through on the commitment and get it done.
>> Dr. Calaway: Well, it’s in the public record now, so (laughter), and I think, thanks
to Mr. Carter, it’s also on the governor’s agenda too,
so we continue to push that every way we can. So they’re getting
hit from all points and contact and I’d be remiss if I didn’t recognize former Trustee
Mitchelson who spent a significant amount of time during
his tenure on the board and also on the board of KACCT
because this was near and dear to his heart and I know he continues to be watching from
probably at home on TV, so – recognize his good work.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: All right, good news. Anything else for Mr. Carter?
>> Trustee Musil: I just want to announce that Trustee Stewart and I strongly support
higher academic standards for the University of Kansas
men’s basketball team. (laughter) August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 10 >> Vice Chair Rayl: With that, thank you for
your report, Mr. Carter, and for your good works, as
always. The next item on our agenda is the budget public hearing, and tonight’s meeting
is set aside for the public hearing on the 2011-2012 budget
for the college, and so I’ll open that public hearing. The
same rules will apply at the public hearing as apply during our petitions and communications
period, that is, any comments are limited to five
minutes, unless we have a significant number of people who
wish to comment, in which case we may limit it to less than five minutes. Just a reminder,
if you do wish to make any comments, this is an opportunity
to speak as to the budget, this is the budget hearing, and
we would like to limit any discussion to that topic. So, with that in mind, do we have anyone
who would like to address the board regarding the budget?
And seeing none, I’d like to invite Don Perkins to take
the podium, and I’ll close the public hearing and ask Mr. Perkins to be available to answer
any questions from the members of the board. We’ll vote
on this recommendation when we get to that recommendation during the Management Committee
report and recommendations, but at this time, if
there are any questions or discussion from the board members for Mr. Perkins, this would
be an opportunity to present those.
>> Trustee Musil: Madame Chair, as the new person on the block, I called Don this morning
and had spent some time with him on this, and I just
want to make sure it’s on the record. Don, the publication
form that is in our board packet under tab 2 is a form prescribed to us by Board of Regents
forms and state statutes, is that right?
>> Don Perkins: Correct. >> Trustee Musil: Because my personal opinion
is it does very little to inform the public about
what’s going on with respect to this budget. It’s almost indecipherable when you compare
last year’s actual to this year’s budget, and so I think
to the extent citizens feel like this doesn’t tell them very
much, I feel the same way. We have put out much other information including the budget
workbook, that Terri got me a copy of it, that explains
it to laypeople in terms citizens can understand, and so I
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 11
think when we talk about publication, this didn’t help me very much. I doubt if it
helped anybody else that looked online at the packet, but we do
put out a lot of information that shows exactly where our
money comes from and exactly where it goes. Thank you, Don.
>> Don Perkins: Sure. >> Trustee Stewart: I think the one thing
it does do, it’s there at the bottom, it does spell out the
amount of tax collected under the mill levy, and you can see that we’re about $4 million
less tax collected for proposed 2011-12 vs. 2009 and
2010’s budget, so that part it does spell out, but I’ve always
struggled with trying to read this and figure out what’s – you have to go to the detail,
which is on our website, and we publish.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I’d just like to make a comment that, as Trustee Stewart indicated,
it is evident from the summary that’s in the board packet,
that what the tax levy is and this board has followed
through on its commitment to hold the tax levy steady and not raise the mill levy, and
it is due entirely to the important good work of President Calaway
and his team that we’ve been able to do that. And to
maintain the level of learning and teaching that we have going on in the classroom while
not raising the mill levy during these difficult economic
times and certainly they’re to be applauded for their good
efforts. And we’ll make every effort to continue to maintain the mill levy where it
is and at the same time maintain the level of the quality of
education we have here at the college, so thank you for your
good work as well. >> Don Perkins: Thank you. I would like to
just say one thing, very quickly. That these, that this
summary sheet reflects information on a series of pages behind it, and this is what we call
the legal budget. It’s provided to the state and the
county, and it has two primary purposes. One is to provide
certain restrictions on our spending, and the other one is to set the mill levy. So
those are what we’re accomplishing today.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 12
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Any other questions for Mr. Perkins? Thank you very much for your
good work. As we continue to fly through the agenda,
I believe that takes us to our committee reports and
recommendations and first up is the Management Committee, and Trustee Drummond.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you, Madame Chair, and I feel the pressure, so I’ll try to go through
this as quick as I can. (laughter) As we just mentioned, the first item behind tab 3 that
we want to consider is the budget adoption for 2011-2012.
Some has been said, but just let me suggest the public
that this takes in account assessed valuation has fallen a little bit. It accounts for increase
in enrollment, about 2%. There are no new positions. There’s
a 1% increase in salary, which is part of the
implementation of the final one-third of the Hay salary study. The capital expenditures
budgets, which include computers, equipment, remodeling,
remain at pretty low levels, and I should probably have Don
answer other questions if you have them, but with that being said, it is the recommendation
of the college administration that the Board of Trustees
approve the Fiscal Year 2011-12 Budget as published,
and does hereby certify that said budget to the county clerk of Johnson County, Kansas,
for collection in the manner prescribed by law. And I so move
that. >> Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
>> Dr. Calaway: Madame Chairman, if I might, just a couple items I want to point out. One
is with this budget, according to a report I saw by
Dr. Sopcich and his team, we’ll be spending in our next fiscal
year approximately $3,000 less per FTE than we did three years ago, but we’re seeing
increases in retention, student success. It’s, I think
in many ways as you intimated, due to the good work of our
budget team, our budget unit heads, and maybe most particular, our faculty in the classroom,
our counselors and the like. To have those kinds
of reductions, in many ways, you know we’ve planned for
some of these reductions and gotten well ahead because of Trustee Stewart and others who
have kind of had their finger on the pulse of what was
going on in the economy. We’ve been able to kind of weather
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 13
our way through this storm. I think we probably have at least one more year of really difficult
budget times. I don’t think we’re through it
yet. Hopefully it’s only one more year, but the good work of the
folks who are, you know, inside this college, the people who make a difference are our faculty,
our budget team, everyone in Joe’s team, certainly
everyone sitting around the table has had a part in all of
that. To look at that kind of a reduction in cost per FTE is a pretty significant testimony
to the good work of the folks here at the college and
certainly your leadership as board members, so we thank you
for that. It’s not been an easy time, and I think the times aren’t going to get any
easier. But, you know, we’ve continued to weather the storm and
maintain as best we can a good strong, long-range financial
plan, too, so I think we’ve continued to be in as good of shape as we can be, but to
congratulate to the team.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: And I would echo that as well. It’s always difficult to do more
with less and we’ve been asking the college to do more
with less for about three years running now, and so I often
find that true talent rises to the surface when you make that challenge and that certainly
has been the case, so, everyone’s to be commended for
their efforts in that regard. >> Trustee Drummond: Madame Chair, I just
might echo some of the comments. As all of you know
we instituted a new approach to the budget this past year, and the budget you see, it
reflects that process, and it was an arduous, difficult challenge.
It was a new way of doing business, if you will. And our
leaders stepped up to that and all the budget areas stepped up to that and I think we have
a really strong budget in terms of efficiency, effectiveness,
as far as how we’re spending the dollars, and I think we’ll
continue to see very strong results in student success which is what we’re all about. So
I would just like to compliment our team for just superb work
in a very difficult year. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Trustee Drummond.
Any other discussion? >> Trustee Musil: A couple of points, Madame
Chairman, is, you know, you hear this sometimes, governmental entities ought to operate like
a business. And I think we’ve done that on the cost side. I
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 14
think we’ve found ways to get more efficient, I think we’ve asked more of everybody in
this room and faculty and staff across the campus. We’ve
asked more of students because of tuition increases. But
what most companies don’t have in a recession is several thousand new customers coming in
to buy their product. And as Bob knows from TLC and
other places, in a bad economy, we have a lot more
customers. And so to do what you’ve done, and I can’t claim any part of it because
I haven’t been here, but I congratulate the trustees and the staff
and the faculty who have done this, because you’re doing a
lot more with less and having even greater success. That can’t probably go on forever,
but it’s a testament to a lot of good people doing good
work. And so I congratulate you for that, and I also will
congratulate you because when we start coming out of this recession, it will be because
the students that came out of here go back to employers and
do a better job and bring more value to their employment,
and that’s a tribute to you guys. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Any further discussion?
Hearing none, all in favor of adoption of the budget
recommendation, say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion passes. And, Trustee Drummond, back to you.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much. On page 14, you will find our working agenda
for the year, and there’s no real rocket science
to that, but it’s there before you, and it’s the recommendation of
the Management Committee that the Board of Trustees approve the Fiscal Year 2011-12 Management
Committee working agenda, as shown on page 14. And I would so move that.
>> Trustee Stewart: I’ll second it. >> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a
second. Any discussion? >> Trustee Cook: Madame Chair?
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Yes, Mr. Cook? August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 15 >> Trustee Cook: I think for the benefit of
the public, when we have a public hearing and no one
speaks and it seems like the budget is approved rather quickly, I think it’s important to
know that there’s budget activity every month of the year throughout
the year by a lot of people in subcommittee and
subcommittee and larger committees and so, I don’t want to make it sound like that
budget went rather quickly tonight, because this worksheet agenda
describes in detail all of the work that a lot of people put
in place and it’s a huge job that occurs almost every day.
>> ?: Good point, Trustee Cook. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Good point, Trustee Cook.
Any further comments or discussion? Hearing none,
all in favor say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. Trustee Drummond.
>> Truestee Drummond: Thank you very much, the next is on page 17, our KU Regents Center
lease agreement. We’ve had this collaborative
relationship with KU for many, many years, and the good news
for us is the lease agreement has continued to stay the same during this inflationary
time. It’s a good deal for us, it’s a good deal for KU, and certainly
a good deal for our students. So, it’s the recommendation of
the Management Committee that the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation of the
college administration to approve a lease agreement
with the KU Regents Center for the use of classrooms from
August 23, 2011, to May 18, 2012, for a sum of $30,000, and I would so move that.
>> Trustee Stewart: I’ll second that. >> Vice Chair Rayl: We have a motion and a
second, any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say
aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 16 >> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much.
The fourth one is pertaining to Overland Park Chamber Foundation sponsorship, you’ll find
that on page 18. This is a survey that we participate in in
which we are able to insert questions in the survey, gives us some very good, strong feedback
about who we are and what we need to be doing. So, it’s
the recommendation of the Management Committee that
the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation of the college administration to approve $1,000
for the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce Foundation,
and I would so move that. >> Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second, any discussion? Hearing none, all
in favor say aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much. Fifth item pertains to another sponsorship,
Shawnee Mission Medical Center, women’s health symposium.
It’s the recommendation of the Management Committee that the Board of Trustees accept
the recommendation of the college administration to
approve $1,000 for Speaking of Women’s Health, Shawnee Mission Medical Center, and I would
so move that.
>> Second. >> Vice Chair Rayl: A motion and a second,
any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much. Next motion pertains to plumbing fixtures,
which is part of our energy efficiency measures that
we talked about this past year, and you’ll see
implementations of this throughout this year, but since we were buying a boatload of fixtures
right now, and we’ll be replacing old fixtures across
the next year and we’ll find energy savings, there’s a payback
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 17
about 13 years for all of this so it’ll help us as we move down the road. So it’s
the recommendation of the Management Committee that the Board of
Trustees accept the recommendation of the college
administration to approve the low bid of $189,713.00 from Rand Construction Company, plus an
additional $28,457.00 to allow for contingencies for possible unforeseen costs, for a total
expenditure not to exceed $218,170.00 for campus plumbing
fixtures replacement, and I would so move that.
>> Second. >> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a
second, and I would just like to make the observation that
the total expenditure came in nearly $100,000 below the estimate, which is always good to
see. So, any further discussion?
>> Trustee Musil: Madame Chair, I had the question about that because it just seemed
like, almost one of those too-good-to-be-true items. Do
we know anything about this contractor? Are we
comfortable? I gather we are and the committee looked at that, but we feel really good about
this. >> Trustee Drummond: We did, but I think I
can have Rex address that. >> Rex Hays: Yes, and I was concerned about
the disparity in the bids too, so we brought the
contractor in, and met with the engineer on the project and, you know, wanted to make
sure they had the comfort level, basically told them “You’re
this much less,” asked them why they thought they were.
And they said, “Well, we’ve done quite a few of these projects and we have a team
that’s very capable and, you know, through their experience.”
And basically they said, “You know, some of the other
companies just have higher margins than ours.” So I don’t have a better explanation than
that, but in addition to that, our engineer did, they had
worked with this company before and recommended them.
They said they’ve done good work. I personally checked two references and they were both
positive, so I feel really good about it.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Rex. Any other
discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 18
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much. The next grouping of contract renewals we
put together for the sense of trying to make things
more efficient. These are the extension of one-year
increments of contracts that we approved for five years a few years back, and they pertain
to renewal of annual contract for coarse paper, renewal
of annual contract for window washing, renewal of annual
contract for Johnson Cleaners. So it’s the recommendation of the Management Committee
that the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation
of the college administration to approve the renewal of
annual contract for coarse paper with Regal Distributing at a total annual expenditure
not to exceed $120,000.00; the annual renewal of a contract
for window washing with Building Keepers Inc., at a total
expenditure not to exceed $80,000.00; and the renewal of an annual contract with Johnson
Cleaners with Xpedx, at a total annual expenditure not to
exceed $60,000.00, and I would so move. >> Trustee Stewart: I’ll second that.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second, any discussion? Hearing none, all
in favor say aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you. >> Vice Chair Rayl: I believe, Trustee Drummond,
we added a couple of things to your agenda? >> Trustee Drummond: Yes, we’re getting
to those but just to point out some budget reallocations,
you had some paperwork on that, pages 27-37 in the board packet. We reviewed those with
administration. This does not require a vote, but just wanted to call to your attention,
this is how we respond to different budget issues that come
up through the year, by reallocating funds. We’re all within
budget, these are all very appropriate, but I just want to point those out to you, and
be glad to try to August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 19 answer any questions that you might have.
Hearing none, seeing nobody moving in that direction,
exactly right, Madame Chair, we have a couple other items we’d like to consider tonight,
late additions to your board packet. You may have some questions,
and that’s certainly appropriate since this was such
a late addition. The first one pertains to construction manager at risk services. This
is the first step in really moving forward with our hospitality
and culinary facility. We went through a very extensive RFP
process. As you might recall we had some hiccups the first time through so we went through
and did it a second time, and included an awful lot of
people in it. Our staff worked really hard at going through the
many, many bids that came in, selected, interviewed, and then finally have a recommendation for
us. So with that being said, it’s the recommendation
of the Management Committee that the Board of Trustees
accept the recommendation of the college administration to approve the proposal from J.E. Dunn
Construction for construction manager at risk services for the Hospitality & Culinary Academy
and the OCB remodel to include pre-construction services
in the amount of $20,000.00, construction management services at the rate of 1.90% and
general conditions costs at the rate of 4.8%, and the actual
project guaranteed maximum price construction cost for the Hospitality & Culinary Academy;
and the construction management services at the rate
of 1.9% and the general conditions costs at the rate of
6.5% for the actual project guaranteed maximum price construction for the OCB remodel. Estimated
costs of the construction manager at risk services for the Hospitality & Culinary Academy
and the OCB remodel is $623,200.00, with agreement subject
to the review by our college counsel. And I would so
move that, Madame Chair. >> Trustee Stewart: I’ll second that.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second, any discussion?
>> Trustee Cook: Madame Chair? >> Vice Chair Rayl: Yes?
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 20
>> Trustee Cook: Well, this is a big project, and it’s a big item to get last minute,
and so I’m a little disappointed that we got all this information
a couple of hours before the meeting today, but I guess a
question I have is – at the end of the staff recommendation, it says it was determined
that the proposal submitted by J.E. Dunn Construction would
best meet the needs of the college. I think as we look at the
costs, I understand if it’s the low cost, which totally it wasn’t, but the cost is
all very, very close. What does that mean, the best interests of the
college? Are there other factors that the selection committee
determined that J.E. Dunn Construction would be in the best interests of the college?
>> Trustee Drummond: If I can give an initial response, and Mr. President, you can chime
in, and then I think our staff can chime in as well.
The staff went through the process of reviewing all of the
different bidders, and in that process there’s an objective review of the entire company
– their financials and several other things, recommendations,
etc. – and there’s a scoring method that’s done
independently by each member of that committee, and when all those are put together, then
there was a selection of the final five, as I remember
correctly. And they were all interviewed, and then from that
interviewing process, there’s more evaluation, and then, and I may get this confused, I think
there was a selection process after that.
>> Dr. Calaway: Down to three. >> Trustee Drummond: The final three, and
from that, then, the best and final offer was asked of
them. So I might have left some gaps in here, so Don or Mitch, however you want to edify
that. >> Mitch Borchers: No, I think you pretty
well summarized it. There were actually a total of 18
criteria in the RFP and the proposal that they were evaluated on, and the fees were
just one of those. Fees actually made up 15% of the total. The
12 proposals were scored like Trustee Drummond described, and that’s how we arrived at
the five finalists, and then the best of the finals were requested
from three of those finalists and we determined that J.E. Dunn, not only from the fee standpoint,
but for their qualifications of similar projects that
best meet our needs. August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 21 >> Trustee Cook: Well, I respect the process,
there’s no doubt about that, and I’m not trying to
mingle with that. I guess when I look at this campus I’m not sure how many buildings have
been built on this campus by another contractor other
than J.E. Dunn. And I know that having flirted a little bit
with the committee that raised the funds, I believe there’s an expectation that this
building, you know, we have the opportunity to really create something
special and unique. Our Culinary Center is internationally known and one of the best
in the country, and I guess I wouldn’t expect that this building
would end up looking like another box on the campus. And so I certainly respect the process,
but I know something about some of the other companies
and I know they also have great ability in building
buildings around the world. And so, I was just curious about that. In terms of the project
manager, I’m assuming that this project manager that’s
been assigned is going to have that creative vision with the
architect to make this a special building and so, I would appreciate your answers.
>> Dr. Calaway: Madame Chairman, if I might, Trustee Cook’s question.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Yes. >> Dr. Calaway: I think, Trustee Cook, you
hit it right on the head at the end of your comments as
far as making this building very, very special. The role of the architect is absolutely prime
related to where we go with this facility and making
sure that it meets all the needs as you just very eloquently
described. The challenge, I think, in the past for our institution is we’ve tried
to match building-tobuilding- to-building, and I think your description
is pretty accurate. We want all of our buildings to look
alike so that they kind of fit a campus look, and I think, quite frankly, the Regnier Center
and the Nerman Museum certainly were our first steps
past replication of existing buildings. In fact, as you go
from one building like GEB into OCB, you see we worked very hard to make – those buildings
were built in different time periods – to make
those buildings look alike. A lot of that came as the result of the
direction the architects received, and in this conversation we’ve had really, the
Culinary Center, we’ve actually asked the architectural firm to be
very careful to recognize that we want this to be a very, very
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 22
special building, very similar to what we’ve talked about related to Nerman and Regnier
Center. The contractor, the general contractor, then carries
out the work, really basically carries out the work as
designed by the architect, and so, they basically follow the guidelines that are established,
as you know, you know in that kind of that environment.
So I think as with previous buildings, not all buildings on
this campus were built by J.E. Dunn, but a good portion, you’re right, work has been
done by Dunn. We have others who have built buildings here,
though. Just like we’ve had a lot of similar work done by our
engineering firms across the campus and oftentimes by our architectural design. In this case,
we have a new architect, or a different architect than
has done some designing for us in the past, and a new
engineering company, and I think, you know, Dunn’s job will be now to carry out the
direction that comes from those architects, to create the
best possible building, and one that’s very unique. And I
think, you know, we’re kind of in a different place than where we were maybe, in the ’70s,
’80s and ’90s, and so I think you’ll see a building
that’s very unique, very much attuned to the kind of issues you
described, some of the fund-raising folk want us to look at.
>> Trustee Drummond: Mr. President, if I could, you might explain a little bit about the approach
with the construction manager at risk, in terms of how that works for the public. That
doesn’t mean necessarily that somebody builds a whole building,
but… >> Dr. Calaway: Right, and construction, and
I’m also going to look to Rex to help fill in the blanks
of anything I might miss, but a construction manager at risk provides us with a maximum
price that we would have for that building, and it gives
us more of a team approach to how the design work of the
architect design carry out in the results of the building that’s delivered to us.
In a construction management at risk process there are also
processes within the mechanism that call for the general
contractor to distribute bids out and actually bid each of the processes so there are, you
know, there would be bids on everything from masonry to
carpentry to plumbing, electrical and the like, and so
Dunn’s job will be to kind of manage all of those mechanisms within the situation.
One of the things August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 23 construction management at risk allows us
to avoid is the whole dynamic of change orders which can
become exceptionally costly to an entity like ours, if you go with purely the low-bid process.
Oftentimes when you’re in a pure low-bid process you
might spend millions of dollars on change orders, on gentle
tweaks that may happen as a result of confusion that comes out of the architectural services.
This gives us the ability to guarantee to the board a
specific maximum price. We always want to come in below the
dollar amount that is in that maximum price, but quite frankly, we’ve got a pretty darn
good bid, and I think from the perspective of, you know, because
of the nature of what’s going on in the environment of
construction management, there’s not a lot of work out there. We’re still getting a
great price on a building, much better than probably we would’ve
seen five or six years ago, because the contractors –
both the generals and the subs – are very, very hungry for good work. So, and this is
a great project. I think part of what we need to always assure
is that we hold the architect’s feet to the fire, because
they’re the ones who design some of the most effective pieces of this, and then, you
know, they work as a team with us and the contractor to deliver
a good buildings. But let me turn to Rex, and see, Rex, if I
missed anything on the CM at risk, or… >> Rex Hays: I think you did a great job and
I think it’s an important thing to remember that we
have a guaranteed maximum price. We know what our budget is…
>> Dr. Calaway: Right. >> Rex Hays: …it’s not going to exceed
that and we’re going to avoid a lot of change orders, so
those are very important factors to consider in that construction delivery method.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Yes, Trustee Stewart. >> Trustee Stewart: Yeah, Jerry, I had recommended
that we build it and make it look like a big chef
hat (laughter) out there, to be a little more unique.
>> Trustee Cook: I hope you’re not on the architectural committee. (Laughter)
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 24
>> Trustee Stewart: No, but I did participate in the teleconference today with the Management
Committee and with the committee that recommended this, and they’ll tell you, I grilled them
pretty good on this. We did have 70 firms that were
extended the offer to bid on this project, and 12 of them
bid. This is a result of a few weeks ago or a month ago where a local contractor was not
aware of this and we went back and reopened and had them
redo the bid so, I think it was a fair process. I guess Dunn
must get a lot of the buildings around the community because their buying power and their
ability to do the job, but they are the lowest one that
met all the RFP requirements and they built a number of the
buildings out here, so, I was comfortable with it, but I grilled them pretty ***
how they got to that end. Particularly, I know change orders is
where the money’s made and to make sure we don’t have
change orders, or at the least, very few change orders where they have that opportunity to
get their profit on that. But I’m comfortable with where
we’re at and what the committee’s done. >> Trustee Drummond: Rex – excuse me, Trustee
Stewart – I think it’s important for Rex to explain
the bidding process if J.E. Dunn decides to bid on any piece of the work.
>> Rex Hays: Yeah, that bidding process is called self-performing by the construction
manager at risk, and they have an opportunity to bid
on whatever service they can provide, as Dr. Calaway
mentioned – masonry, concrete, carpentry. But they bid for that self-performance, they
go through our process here at the college through our Purchasing
Department, so it’s bid out just like any other
commodity or any other bids that we perform, so it’s very above board. It’s just a
good process so there’s really no opportunity for them to
have an advantage in any way. >> Trustee Drummond: Thank you.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Trustee Musil? >> Trustee Musil: Madame Chair, I just want
to mention, I congratulate the college on reaching out
a second time to the construction community and relooking at how we do our bids, because
the 12 firms that responded are demonstrative of the fact
that we have a great number of great construction August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 25 companies in the Kansas City metropolitan
area. I mean, this list is the cream, but it’s a lot of very good
companies and you’re going to leave some good companies out in that, but I think the
key factor here is that we reached out a second time to make
sure we touched 74 different companies who might be able to
give the taxpayers the best number. And the process that you went through sounds like
a sound one to me, and so I’ll support the recommendation.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Trustee Musil, and I would just observe that, you know, obviously
the process that Mitch has described that allocated, I believe you said, 15% to the
cost, and the other 85% was for intrinsic things like how well
they could do the work. And I once had a very wise man say
to me, I’m not such a rich man that I can afford to buy cheap things. And this is one
of those times where that is very appropriate – you get
what you pay for, and you know, J.E. Dunn has a reputation in
the community of doing good work, and I’m heartened to hear that when we are protecting
the taxpayers’ dollars, we’re not just taking
the cheapest number, but the company who can do the best job.
And so I have tremendous confidence in Mitch and Rex and their team to come up with the
best person for the job and I trust that that’s the
case here, so. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I believe we
still need to vote. All in favor, say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. I believe you have one more recommendation,
Trustee Drummond. >> Trustee Drummond: One more, Madame Chair,
and not gone as quickly as I hoped for all of you,
but we’ll try and get through this last one quickly. As some of you may know, that
the Sun News Publications closed this week, and you might
recall that we voted that they would be the college’s
official newspaper. That can no longer happen, so as part of our conference today, conference
call today, we talked about other options and after discussing
the few options that are there, and there aren’t very
many options, in fact, there’s not a good option. It’s the recommendation of the Management
Committee August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 26 that the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation
of the college administration to designate The
Legal Record as the official newspaper of the college and that publication constitute
legal notice on behalf of the Board of Trustees. And I would
so move that, Madame Chair. >> Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: We have a motion and a second, and I would just mention that I think
we’re all a little bit saddened by the closing of Sun
Publications. They’ve represented the voice of Johnson
County for many, many years, and as Trustee Drummond mentioned, in some ways, we have
the lesser of no other evils in what we’ve elected
to do here, but it’s a sign of the times, I think, in what’s
happening with published media, so, with that, any other discussion? Yes, Trustee Stewart?
>> Trustee Stewart: Mr. Carter mentioned in his report that he’s going to address the
legislature or legislators to maybe bring forward a new legislation
that will allow us to consider posting it on the
website as sufficient legal notice and now that it’s more accepted – electronic postings
– and it’s getting harder and harder for newspapers to actually
survive, I think that needs to be addressed. So this next
legislative session hopefully he’ll have some success with that. But even though it’s
not accepted as a legal publication, we do put it out on our
website, so it is out there for the public to see.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Trustee Cook. >> Trustee Cook: Thank you, Madame Chair.
Should we consider a second publication as well, from
a timing standpoint? And I realize we wouldn’t publish twice, but, and I don’t know how
many issues we have that the time expedience of a notification
wouldn’t be delayed by The Legal Record publishing
date. I know some governmental agencies do list two, just as an alternative for flexibility.
I do agree the legislation needs to change because it’s
kind of absurd to know how many people are subscribing to any
of these newspapers anymore. And I appreciate your comment about the website, because I
think from the public standpoint, it’s important to
have that there for the general public. But I just ask it as a
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 27
question – would it be to our advantage to have two official legal publications? It
may not be an issue, I just ask the question.
>> Trustee Stewart: Other than spending more money, I don’t see, personally…
>> Trustee Cook: Well, it wouldn’t be spending more money, you’d still just publish one,
you’d only have one publication, but if we had something
we wanted to get out into the public on Monday, for
example, and The Legal Record didn’t print until Friday, does it give us more flexibility.
I’m not suggesting we place it twice.
>> Trustee Stewart: Julie’s shaking her head.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I think the answer to that might be the absence of other alternatives,
but Julie… >> Julie Haas: There are a few, but they all
tend to publish mid-week, so I don’t think we’d pick up
– it wouldn’t be like a Monday to a Friday, it would be a Tuesday to a Wednesday kind
of thing. >> Trustee Cook: OK I recall the question.
>> Trustee Musil: If you don’t mind, Trustee. I mean, I think we did this at Overland Park,
but The Star is a statutorily qualified newspaper,
which is still publishing daily. My concern would be if The
Legal Record went out of business the day after our Trustees meeting and we had something
to publish the rest of the month, should we not have
an alternative? I think The Legal Record would be our
designated one, it is certainly cheaper, but does it make sense to simply have maybe The
Star as an alternative so that we don’t have to call
a special board meeting or something to have a designated
publication. That’s, I don’t know if we do that this month or look at it between now
and next month, but…
>> Julie Haas: We could do the Johnson County Neighborhood News, but that still gives us
Wednesday and Saturday. Full city would be daily, but it would be quite expensive. We
could have it as back-up, though.
>> Dr. Calaway: I think – Madame Chair, if I might.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 28
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Yes, please. >> Dr. Calaway: I think that’s probably
a good option for us to have, for exactly the reasons that
have been discussed. The reality of life is, The Sun newspapers are not the only publication
that’s in distress. And I don’t know all of the details,
we’ve not looked at the, obviously, the financials for The
Legal Record, but because they’re not, in essence it’s just, you know, we go out and
buy the ad and so it’s that kind of back and forth. But I
think in this environment, it’s probably not a bad idea to have a
back-up, and it certainly will keep us from a place where we would have to, at the very,
you know you kind of have a time of moving things through
the budget and like to have a back-up that we could fall to.
So, I think it’s a good suggestion, and maybe with The Legal Record being our first
option and then whatever we might suggest, I think probably,
as Julie described, maybe using that twice-a-week Star
option as the back-up. >> Trustee Stewart: And as The Star is published
in Kansas City, Missouri, does that meet the statutory…
>> (Inaudible) >> Trustee Stewart: I think we’d be better
off to go with the Shawnee Dispatch or the Gardner, or
the Lawrence Journal-World which owns the Shawnee Dispatch. Nothing’s going to get
a circulation around the entire county, so I guess my bias
is not to go to The Star. >> Dr. Calaway: The reason we didn’t bring
The Star forward was because it’s not published in
Kansas or in, obviously, Johnson County. But… >> Trustee Musil: It would be the most expensive,
too. I guess I would suggest, I should’ve shut up
before, that we recall the question and let staff look at it and see if there’s an alternative
that they would recommend that’s a Kansas publication.
>> Trustee Stewart: And I believe the City of Overland Park’s going through this process
now. It’d be interesting to see what their outcome is
on this. August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 29 >> Dr. Calaway: I think, Madame Chair, they’re
watching to see what we do. (Laughter) We just
happened to meet before they did. >> Trustee Stewart: I think The Legal Record
has a captive audience because all the attorneys in
town have to subscribe to it. >> Dr. Calaway: Right.
>> Trustee Stewart: They’re not going to drop their subscriptions.
>> Dr. Calaway: We know that this will get us through this month and if you’d like
we’ll bring back a recommendation next month for a back-up
secondary, kind of looking at all the options, but I would,
you know, our sense was when we got the news yesterday, or the day before on The Sun, that
we need to probably do something that’s more locally
published. So, if you’d like we can do some more detailed
staff work and bring back a secondary if you’d like to approve The Legal Record as the primary.
>> Trustee Drummond: We can consider that at the next Management Committee meeting.
>> Dr. Calaway: Sure. >> Trustee Drummond: Recommendation from staff,
I think it’s a good suggestion, we wouldn’t be
talking about this now if the newspaper didn’t go out of business. So, another one could
go out of business, so I think it’s good to have a
back-up plan. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Yeah, and I think this
is a great band-aid, you know, for our kind of emergency
circumstance here, so we’ll look forward to hearing more information in your report.
Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, say
aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. >> Trustee Drummond: Thank you, Madame Chair,
just to point your attention to the remainder of
the material behind tab 3, we have IT infrastructure plan that’s been updated. There’s been
an awful lot of work, great work done by Denise and her
team, pages 40-42, you see the capital improvements piece
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 30
on there for your review, we’re doing well there. We’re either on or under budget and
projects are moving very quickly and very well, and with
all of that I just want to thank staff for excellent work and
that ends my report. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Trustee Drummond.
And next on the agenda is the Learning Quality Committee report and recommendation,
and Trustee Sharp was unable to attend tonight due to a
last minute emergency. Do we have anyone else who attended that meeting? Trustee Musil?
>> Trustee Musil: We do, Madame Chair. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Would you like to give
that report, Trustee Musil? >> Trustee Musil: First of all, I’m trying
to figure out if I have the authority to move the meeting
time from 8 a.m. on the first Monday of the month. (Laughter) I don’t know if I have
that authority without Stephanie here. No, we did meet on
August 1, and Dr. Grove led the discussion and we have
multiple recommendations that came from the committee. The first one is, again, a recommendation
that that the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation
of the college administration to approve the Learning Quality Working Agenda for 2011-2012,
as in the board packet at page 45. As Trustee Cook
described for the Management Committee report on the first part of the budget that this
sets out what the committee does during the year, and you’re
probably all more familiar with it than I am, and if there are
any questions I’m going defer them to Dr. Grove, but I would so move that we approve
the working agenda.
>> Second. >> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a
second. And I would just comment that we tend to adopt
these working agendas rather pro forma, but I think it’s important to take a few minutes
to look through these working agendas. They outline in summary
fashion the busy work that goes on in committee meetings, and as I’m sure everyone’s aware,
that’s where the real work gets done, is in the committee
meetings, and so, I would encourage everyone to take a few minutes to look at those working
agendas August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 31 when it comes time for them to be approved
and get a better idea of what goes on in some of those
committee meetings. So, any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries.
Trustee Musil. >> Trustee Musil: The next several items all
relate to the Code of Student Conduct, and the Student
Disciplinary Code and then appeals on grade reviews, all of which are effort, I think,
to clean up some of the language in the existing policies, and
as an attorney I am very well aware of the fact that no matter
what we put in this language it will not be perfect and it will not fit every situation
coming forward. And some of it will appear not to necessarily
make common sense, but I think all of the recommendations
here were reviewed closely by staff and have been recommended by the committee. The first
one we’ll take is Board Policy 319.01, the Student Code
of Conduct, which is found on page 46, the actual
changes. It’s the recommendation of the Learning Quality Committee that the Board
of Trustees accept the recommendation of the college administration
to approve the amendment to Board Policy 319.01, Student Code of Conduct, as shown in the board
packet, and I would so move. >> Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all
in favor say aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries.
>> Trustee Musil: The next items we’ll take is a packet and they’re policies 319.02,
03, 04 and 05. These all relate to disciplinary action and
the hearing process and the review process and the makeup of
the hearing panel. Things to ensure that our students have an adequate opportunity to present
their case, and that it is reviewed in a fair and impartial
manner. Changes to our existing procedures which,
although I think were pretty strong, can always be improved with what we’ve learned in the
past, so with August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 32 that, it is the recommendation of the Learning
Quality Committee that the Board of Trustees accept the
recommendation of the college administration to approve amendments to Board Policies 319.02
Student Disciplinary Action, 319.03 Student Appeal
of Disciplinary Actions, 319.04 Student Complaints, and
319.05 Student Discrimination, Harassment, Retaliation Complaint, as shown in the board
packets, and I would so move.
>> Second. >> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a
second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say
aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. >> Trustee Musil: The final recommendation
of Learning Quality has to do with the Student Grade
Review and Appeals process, Policy 314.08. I unfortunately didn’t know this existed
when I was in college (laughter), I could’ve used it some.
But the Learning Quality Committee recommends the Board
of Trustees accept the recommendation of the college administration to approve the amendments
to Board Policy 314.08, regarding Student Grade
Review and Appeals, as is shown in the board packet,
and I would so move. >> Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second, any discussion?
>> Trustee Musil: I would mention the one question I had about this was we have, as
the policy is now written, it is a large group, I think
six different people, including representatives of students, and
everybody has to be at the hearing, and my only concern was that it may be difficult,
especially when you’re appealing spring semester grades,
and we want to get the appeal done timely, then in the summer
we can get everybody there. So I think we’re going to move forward, seeing how that works,
and assuming the people that want to be on that
committee will take it seriously, and will attend the hearing
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 33
so we can accomplish the review in a timely fashion. I think that’s something that staff
will continue to review as we go forward.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Any other discussion? >> Dr. Calaway: The only thing, Madame Chairman,
if I might, we had a meeting of our all-faculty group yesterday, there was a very robust – Dr.
Rhinehart, is that a good description? >> Dr. Rhinehart: That’s a good description.
>> Dr. Calaway: …robust conversation related to exactly the points Trustee Musil has made
and looking at, you know, what are the things
that we can do to continue to provide, make sure we provide
due process, but also appropriate confidentiality. And one of the beauties of what we’ve been
trying to do over the last couple of years with our
policies and procedures is provide a good, clear, direct policy
with procedures then, that we’re able to tweak as we see the strengths and the weaknesses.
So we’re going to continue to work with our faculty
as a whole to make sure that we build a good procedure and
continually evaluate those as well. So we had great conversation, I thought, at the
meeting. We’re going to continue to gather good input and also
we communicated to the faculty. We’re going to continue to
take a look to assure exactly Trustee Musil’s comments around, you know, where are the places
where we can continue to look at these procedures.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, President Calaway. Any other discussion? Hearing none, all in
favor say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. And that takes us to our Human Resources report
and recommendations, and Dr. Cook.
>> Dr. Cook: The committee did meet on Tuesday, August 2, and we’re a little more civil
with our time. Trustee Musil, we meet at 8:30 a.m.,
and so we had very good dialogue. We did spend considerable time talking about duplication
between Collegial Steering and Human Resources, and are
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 34
those two committees reviewing similar kinds of things. I think it led us to always review
and remind ourselves what are the purpose of each of
the committees, and hopefully stay on task a little bit more
effectively. We do have a couple of recommendations. Like the other committees, on page 73, you’ll
see the working agenda for the Human Resource
Committee for the school year. It is the recommendation of
the Human Resource Committee that the Board of Trustees approve the Human Resource Committee
Working Agenda for 2011-2012, as shown subsequently in the board packet, and on page 73, and I’ll
make that motion. >> Trustee Drummond: Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second, any discussion? All in favor say aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries.
>> Trustee Cook: We did pull the nondiscrimination policy off. We’ve had additional information
and input that we will need to continue to study and we expect to bring that back to
committee and have a second reading hopefully next month. We
do have another recommendation, a policy that was read last
month for a first reading, regarding the criminal background check policy. We did have some
discussion regarding the detail of misdemeanors and is
that going to be manageable, so to put that on the table for, I
guess, a second reading, I would say it is the recommendation of the Human Resource Committee
that the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation
of the college administration to approve board policy
415.03, Criminal Background Check Policy, as is shown subsequently in the board packet.
And I’ll make that motion.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Do I have a second? >> Trustee Musil: I will second the motion.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 35
>> Trustee Cook: I think that, if I might, Madame Chair, we have discussed at length
the issue of, I think we understand, new employees coming
on campus. I think we understand the issue of if we have
people transferring from within one department to the other, and that’s where some of the
discussion came about. And then the issue of the misdemeanor
and reporting within I believe it is a seven-year period of cases. And so, some of the questions
that you’ve had is, is the misdemeanor component manageable? And what exactly does that mean,
and so, I would certainly, Madame Chair, entertain any
discussion that Board members may have regarding those three elements.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: And with that invitation, Trustee Musil, I see that you have that quizzical
look in your eyes.
>> Trustee Musil: I’ll have that a lot, probably. I asked the questions last month
when I first saw this, about the scope of it, because it seemed
like a very broad, a very broad policy, and in talking about
it in the time since that, I guess I’ve become convinced that I can support this and
see how it works. I will explain my less-than-enthusiastic acceptance
of it, because if our goal is to ensure that this campus,
by both staff and faculty, have people of character, and that our personal safety and
our financial safety and security of the campus is monitored. So
we know we have people that haven’t been convicted of
crimes that would affect our view of their ability to keep the campus safe or to keep
the taxpayers’ money secure, then it’s hard not to support
that. What I note, though, is that this policy will not get to
probably a majority of the people on campus in those positions, because if you are in
a position now and you don’t change it, you will never undergo
a criminal background check, as I understand the policy
today. It is for new hires, and those that move to a different position that have to
undergo the criminal background check. A concern I have there is,
if I have an indiscretion in my youth, and I am an assistant
faculty, an assistant professor, and I want to move to an associate professor or a full
professor, I understand I would then be subject to criminal
background check. Or if I want to be promoted to a new
position, do I want to change that and have that disclosed? Because I have been a solid
employee here August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 36 for 20 years, and nobody knows that when I
was in college, I got a DUI or I had a reckless endangerment because I was driving a car recklessly.
The kind of things that may well not have anything
to do with safety and security by the time you’re 40 or 50 or older. I’m worried
a little bit about whether that deters people, when they know about this
policy, from moving on to the next position, and whether
or not that will limit our ability to move talent to the level that we ought to move
it. And, I think the other, maybe broad part of this is that if
you’d don’t report within seven calendar days, if you don’t
understand that you’ve committed a misdemeanor and been convicted, and that can happen because
you get diversion, in which you’re really not
convicted if you get true diversion, but if your sentence is
suspended but you were convicted, you were convicted. Will people know sufficiently,
understand what they’re supposed to report, and if they
don’t report it, they’re subject to disciplinary action up to
dismissal. Now I understand that staff is going to apply
that in a very careful and measured manner, at least I
would expect that to happen. But it seems like a fairly large and heavy hammer to use
for the goals we’re seeking. And I guess, those are my
concerns as I look at this. I understand it’s consistent with
what other institutions of higher learning do. I understand that it is consistent with
what some private sector employers do. I understand that it
may catch something that’s very important to the safety of our
students, or the safety of the dollars that are expended here. I just have some concerns,
and I’ll be looking for the balance of how this is applied.
I also have not heard how much it will cost us on an
annual basis to conduct those, because I know we don’t have as much turnover now as we
did in the years when there might have been people moving
from position to position, but those are my concerns. I
talked at some length with both Trustee Cook and Trustee Rayl and as I said when I started
my second of this, I’m comfortable enough to second
this and to support it, but I’ll be watching it carefully, I guess.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: One thing I would like to comment on is, as President Calaway alluded
earlier, oftentimes the policy is the foundation upon
which the procedure rests. And the procedure implements
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 37
the policy. And we’ve had extensive discussion in committee about that procedure, and what
that procedure is going to look like, and that’s
where the fine-tuning will occur. The difficulty in the policy
itself becomes parsing out – well in these circumstances we would want you to report,
in these circumstances maybe it’s not that important,
and maybe these promotions you should report and these
you shouldn’t, and it becomes difficult not only in implementation, but enforcement
of a policy that has so many different minutiae and different meanderings
in the way it’s worded. And so the intent here is
to create a policy that’s easily understood, easily implemented and easily enforced, with
an eye to creating a procedure that allows that flexibility.
And clearly, it’s not the college’s intent, I don’t think, to
terminate an employee who had a DUI 20 years ago, because they’re going to now get promoted
and that’s discovered. And the procedure, as
I’ve seen it, and Dr. Korb may be able to address this as well, is
pretty specific in terms of – these are the types of offenses that might constitute
a failure, these are the types of offenses that might constitute a
closer look. And I think that it will be imperative and I’ve had
the same questions that you’re raising, and I think it’ll be imperative to ensure
that our procedure is not that “heavy hammer” as you put it, that
exceeds our goal of ensuring a safe workplace, and
unnecessarily precludes people from employment or punishes people for minor indiscretions
that have nothing to do with their job function.
>> Trustee Musil: I just thought of a question. Would our EthicsPoint system, or some other
place, is there someplace where I could anonymously
say, I was pulled over for this, and I signed the ticket, or I
was, whatever the offense is, to confirm whether or not that’s reportable, while still keeping
anonymity. I mean, is there a process in the administrative
procedures for that? >> Dr. Korb: Not specifically, but a person
could do that on EthicsPoint anonymously, and they
would get an answer, if they were specific enough about the incident that we would be
able to make a determination on that. They would get an answer
on that, if they did that. August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 38 >> Trustee Musil: I think that would be worth
exploring, because I don’t think we want everybody
coming to us every time, however many thousand employees have something that happened where
they ran afoul of the law and think, well speeding,
well is a red light violation a misdemeanor, or an
ordinance violation, because lawyers have trouble making those distinctions.
>> Dr. Korb: Right. >> Trustee Musil: And I think having a place
where they could get it without kind of spilling your
guts every time you go in, because it doesn’t feel as professional if you put people in
a position of not knowing for sure whether they have to report
something. >> Dr. Korb: Right, and that would not be
our intent to make it confusing for anybody. The other
thing that, if they didn’t mind coming and just asking, we could help them with that
and it wouldn’t be reported or go on anything if it didn’t
need to, but as far as the balance of this whole thing goes, we did
put a disclaimer on here also that indicated that it does not necessarily mean, you know,
if you fail a background check that does not necessarily
mean that you automatically will not be considered for
employment. Just like right now, we have on our application – “Have you ever been
convicted of a felony?” Just because a person checks “yes”
does not mean that we automatically kick that application
out or we don’t let that person go through the process. We do, and in fact, if it’s
you know, something that has happened and it gets through those
guidelines and we say this doesn’t apply, this was 25 years
ago, there have been no offenses, that kind of thing. It doesn’t affect a person’s
employment even now without this policy, so we have that in mind,
but I know people get nervous it would be extremely rigid.
The adjudication guidelines are there. They say what is a pass, what is a fail, but it
can be a pass– pending review, or I’m sorry, a fail–pending
review, and then we go back and look at it and if it doesn’t
have anything to do with the job or wouldn’t affect the job or impact the job, then they
would fall under that disclaimer.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 39
>> Dr. Calaway: Trustee Musil, to the other second half of your question, and it would
be possible to do that anonymously on EthicsPoint, so an
individual who files an EthicsPoint question or issue can
report their name or they can do it anonymously, and then they would just need to go back and
gather the response. So it is possible to do that,
gather that information and have anonymous question and
response. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Any further discussion?
We have a motion and a second, a very reluctant second, but we’ll go ahead and put it to
a vote, so all in favor say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion passes. >> Trustee Cook: The committee also spent
considerable time regarding exit interviews, and I really
feel good about the process. I think when an employee leaves our staff, is very sensitive
to their feelings and statements, and no matter what those statements
are, I think we handle it in a very professional manner, and if there are larger issues as
a result of those exit interviews, I’m confident our staff is
dealing with them in an appropriate way, so I want to congratulate you, Dr. Korb, and
your staff, for how we go through that process. We did have
an update on the internal legal counsel. I think that’s still
in process. I don’t think we have anything to bring tonight, do we?
>> Dr. Korb: It’s in the addendums. >> Trustee Cook: I missed the addendums? Would
you address that, please? >> Dr. Korb: We have a name that we have brought
forward for recommendation to hire for our inhouse
counsel. And it’s in the addendum to the board packet.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: The HR addendum. >> Dr. Calaway: Should be tab 15.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Tab 15. At the very bottom of the first page of tab 15.
>> Trustee Cook: There’s a reassignment there, but where is the…
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 40
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Number three, paragraph number three on the HR addendum. And while
Trustee Cook is locating that information, since you raised the issue, I’ll just comment.
Our decision to hire and our search for internal legal counsel
has been an ongoing process for at least the nearly three
years that I’ve been on the Board and I think it’s absolutely the right direction
for the college to go in terms of risk management and potential cost
savings as well. And I would comment that our process in
locating the right person was very thorough. We vetted over 80 applicants, as I recall,
and conducted 10 interviews for a first pass, we then conducted
further interviews as a second pass, and then further
interviews as a third pass, and at the end of the day, the candidate that’s being brought
forward in your HR addendum this evening was at the top of
that file of over 80 applicants, and I believe that represents
a very qualified candidate. So, did you locate that?
>> Trustee Cook: Yeah, I have it listed among a whole series of others, so I guess it’s
the intent to take them all as a group, or did you want
to address that as an individual? They’re listed among a whole
list of people. >> Dr. Korb: Right, but this is just on the
consent agenda, along with all the rest of the items.
>> Trustee Cook: OK. >> Dr. Korb: We have brought an update, but
it doesn’t have to go through as a specific recommendation in the HR.
>> Trustee Cook: We’ll leave it in the consent agenda. I just didn’t see it as a specific
item. And I apologize for not looking at that addendum
in the detail, I should have. To complete my report, perhaps,
then, Madame Chair, is we did move into executive session to discuss a couple of legal issues
as well, and we’ll leave that appointment in the
consent agenda where it is, and that concludes my report.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Trustee Cook. Any discussion for Trustee Cook before we
move on?
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 41
>> Trustee Musil: I don’t know, rather than wait til the consent agenda, I had the opportunity,
along with Trustee Weiss, to interview the two finalists
for the in-house legal counsel position, and the process
worked very well because they were both very, very good candidates. And I’m sure the administration
had a very difficult time picking between the two of them, and there was no way we could
lose, with the quality and experience each of them brought
to the table. >> Vice Chair Rayl: I would agree with your
observation. I had the opportunity to speak with the
candidates as well, and they were both extremely talented folks, so, thank you for your comments,
Trustee Musil. Anything further? That takes us to the Audit Committee report,
and behind tab 6, you’ll see the minutes of our meeting
of August 3. Several things were discussed at the meeting. There were updates on some
of the activities and audits that have been under way. There
was considerable discussion regarding an audit that was
conducted on student club fundraising, oversight and internal controls. Just sort of a checks
and balances to see where we were on that and to make sure
that there aren’t things falling through the cracks that we
should be taking note of, and there were some recommendations that came out of that audit,
and some things that will be implemented to ensure
that there’s no opportunity for allegations of impropriety or
anything of that nature. So my compliments to the folks who were involved in that audit.
There’s also a purchasing card review currently under way
to conduct, being conducted to determine how we go about
issuing and monitoring purchasing card use here at the college, and we’ll be expecting
a report on that at our November committee meeting. Some quarterly
projects were discussed as well – an ongoing project
for emergency preparedness and for information security were discussed, and there are a number
of things going on there. You can refer to your
board packet if you’d like some more information. And out
of the meeting came one recommendation that I will make, and that relates to our working
agenda. And as with the other committees, it was that
time of the year when we review and adopt our working
agenda. And so, if you’ll refer to page 85 of your board packet you’ll find the
working agenda there. August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 42 And it is the recommendation of the Audit
Committee that the Board of Trustees approve the Fiscal
Year 2011-2012 Audit Committee Working Agenda as found on the following, as found on page
85 of your board packet, and I will make that motion.
>> Second. >> Vice Chair Rayl: A motion and a second.
Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. And the last thing I’d like to mention before
I open it up for discussion is we did, as always have
our ethics report line update, and we were just discussing, of
course, the importance of the ethics report line, and it offers an opportunity for folks
to air concerns that they may have. And during the period between
May 6 and July 26, there were 13 reports covering 11
issues. As of July 25, four of those cases were appropriately addressed, one was reviewed
and found unsubstantiated, and eight cases are currently
in progress – eight cases covering seven issues, there was
duplicate reporting in one case. And I would commend those who take the time to go through
those ethics report line reports and investigate
those and report on those, and I always have the utmost
confidence that things have been thoroughly investigated and it’s always good to see
that those works are ongoing and that we’re addressing concerns
as they arise. That concludes my report, and I’ll
entertain any questions from the Board. Hearing none, that takes us to our president’s recommendations
for action and I believe first up is the Treasurer’s report, and Trustee Drummond.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much, Madame Chair. You will turn behind page, behind
tab 7, pages 87 through 97, for the Treasurer’s report. The report covers the fiscal year
to June 30, 2011. You’ll find a very strong, very good report,
but I would suggest that it’s not final. There’s still some
adjustments and accrued payables and receivables that have to be made yet, but given that as
it is, it’s still a very strong report. Just a couple
highlights, and glad to entertain any questions you might have.
We mentioned last month we received a tax payment of $28,457,000 and change, that’s
recorded on this August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 43 report. We also had a forgiveness of a Stormwater
Management Project loan of $528,500 by the Kansas
Department of Health and Environment, that’s reflected here. If you look at page 88-89,
the total revenues came in at 98.6% of projection, which
is pretty doggone good. And what makes me even
happier is that our expenditures were at about 91%, which means that we’ve managed our
budgets very, very well, and that’s always good for us
to do. On the auxiliary fund, on pages 90-91, you’ll see that we
are essentially flat from a year ago. There was some growth in some areas and some areas
that were down a little bit, but altogether we’re
in pretty good shape there, and we’ve made some improvements in
some areas, and some others we’ll continue to work on. And on page 97, you’ll see the
cash balances of various funds, and they show an unencumbered
balance of well over $93 million, which is very healthy
for us going into yet another challenging year for us. So with all of that, I would
suggest that we accept the recommendation of the college administration
that the Board of Trustees approve the Treasurer’s report for the month of June 2011, subject
to audit, and I would so move that. >> Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a second. Do we have any discussion? Hearing
none, all in favor of adopting the Treasurer’s report,
say aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: All opposed? Motion carries. And that takes us to our monthly report to
the Board. Dr. Calaway, I’ll defer to you.
>> Dr. Calaway: Thank you, Madame Chairman. I, like Trustee Drummond, would just like
to recognize our budget unit heads for their
outstanding work in helping us manage the budget this year. As
you know, we build a budget that plans for a certain amount of revenue, and also a certain
amount of expenditures, although we generally hope that
we’ll finish the year somewhere around the 94% mark in
expenditures, to recognize there will be some budgets that we won’t fully spend. For us
to finish about 91.3% is a real accomplishment, and recognition
that our budget unit heads understand the budget
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 44
environment of these days, and that’s a really good work. I’d like to recognize
particularly Bob Prater and Don Perkins for their great work. As you
know, they watch the dollars and the nickels and the
pennies very, very well for us, and keep us attuned of where we’re at. We do know that
as we go through closing, we’ll probably creep up
just a very, very little bit, but we assume we’ll be below the
92% mark by final close, final audit. So thank you to all the folks on the budget side and
also those who manage budgets for us in a very good way.
Under tab 8 this month, you’ll see my monthly report for the
Board, and I would just point out one or two things. One is that July 14 and 15, the college
hosted and sponsored the Eastern Kansas Math Education
Summit. That was the event sponsored and kind of
coordinated by Jeff Frost, our dean of mathematics, but also through our Achieving the Dream group,
which we now call Dream Johnson County. And congratulate Dr. Kovac and his good work,
too, in helping coordinate that activity. We had a
really excellent turnout. We’re very, very pleased to have
math educators from the K-12 environment, from the community college system and also
from our area universities, and we’re very, very pleased
to host that event. Also, Trustee Musil, earlier in some of his
comments related to both revenues and expenditures, talked about some of the challenges sometimes
we have if we only look at the expenditure side
of what we do. And one of the things I’d like to share, and
your lead-in certainly a few minutes back gives me great opportunity to kind of talk
a little bit about some of the things we’re doing in our grants
area. We are in the process of developing and kind of
reorganizing our grants process into a grants leadership and development area. We do believe,
you know, we’re going to have some continued
challenges related to our revenues, and one area that we’ve
not exercised our opportunities as well on is on the grants development side, both with
state/local money, but also national monies and foundation
funds. And so, we are looking at some restructuring and
reorganizing our grants mechanism. It’ll fall under the leadership of Dr. Rhinehart
down to Dr. Kovac, and we’re very excited about where that
might take us and we can get them some pretty aggressive goals
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 45
to hit, from the perspective of raising new grant dollars. And we think that also will
help us as we look at opportunities to grow the institution,
new program development and the like. I’d also like to introduce all of you to
Shelia Mauppin, who’s our doctoral intern. Soon-to-be Dr.
Mauppin is doing her internship with me. She’s a doctoral student from the University of
Texas at Austin, in their Community College Leadership
Program, so she’ll be spending the semester with us.
And Shelia, welcome, it’s great to have you with us, and she’ll be attending some
of our committee meetings, certainly Board meetings and other
activities throughout the semester she’s with us. Her
career goals, she hopes, I won’t speak for her, but I think we are leading her towards
thinking about maybe a career as a chief academic officer,
so she’ll be spending some time with Dr. Rhinehart, but
somewhere down the line with all the retirees of us old presidents, you know, those opportunities
will be available to her too. And in just a week or
so I found her to be really very, very talented and bright, and
our future community college leadership is bright if she’s an example of the folks
that we see coming through the pathways to the presidents here
or chief academic officer roles. Other than that, I certainly
have any, be open to any questions or comments the Board might have related to my report,
but I know you’ve had a chance to see it, read it and
look at it. I’m certainly open to any questions you may have.
Seeing and hearing none, then under tab 9, we have this month, our Clinical Affiliate
Agreements, those are on pages 99 and 100. As you know, regularly
we ask the Board to consider Clinical Affiliate Agreements. We have two of those available
for your consideration tonight. First is with Olathe Medical
Services Inc. for clinical experiences for our Dietary Manager program. The second is
with the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences
where we’ll be doing some clinical agreements for nursing
in the nursing of children. And it’s the recommendation of the college administration
that the Board of Trustees authorize the college to enter into
an agreement with those agencies for clinical experiences for
our students as indicated, and those would be for a period of August 18, 2011, through
June 30, 2012. >> So moved.
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 46
>> Second. >> Vice Chair Rayl: I have a motion and a
second, any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say
aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Opposed? Motion carries. >> Dr. Calaway: Thank you, Madame Chair, that
would complete my report. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Dr. Calaway.
And I’m not aware of any old business. I’m also not
aware of any new business that we need to take up, so unless anyone informs me differently,
that takes me to our reports from board liaisons, and
we’ll start with Dr. Cook, and his report from the KACCT.
>> Trustee Cook: Thank you, Madame Chair. We’ve not met since the new assignments,
but we do have a strategic plan scheduled for Sunday,
September 11, and Monday, September 12, up in the
northeast corner of the state, in Hiawatha country, and I believe there’s also a meeting
tentatively scheduled for the 15th which we might coordinate
with the 11th and the 12th. So we’re looking forward
to that, and I’ll try and carry the Mitchelson water pail, although I expect to spill lots
on the way, because Lynn really did a nice job and was
a cornerstone of that group, so we’ll attempt to pick up the
pieces. And that concludes my report, Madame Chair.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Trustee Cook. And that takes us to our JCERT report from
Trustee Stewart.
>> Trustee Stewart: Yes, and I am filling in Lynn Mitchelson’s shoes as well on that.
He was treasurer of the authority. I attended my
first meeting on July 27, out at the K-State campus in Olathe.
And Ed Eilert, the county chair, is the chairman of that authority, and he conducted the meeting.
There were just a couple of minor things at this
meeting. I think this meeting was kind of the end of the
summer wrap-up meeting and probably more of the business gets done as we get into later
on here in the fall. But they’re updating their website
so there’ll be a more visual evidence of the authority out on the
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 47
Web. The Johnson County IT Department is actually going to do that work for the authority and
that provides some cost savings to the authority
to get that done and they have the capacity to host it, so,
that’s under way. And then we had an update on the audit process. It’s very important
that all the money that the taxpayers put into the authority,
that the audits are done and this audit firm is Allen, Gibbs &
Houlik out of Wichita, and they’ve been doing this for a year. And they will be reporting
on an audit later on in the year which would include some
of the construction projects that are under way. The
money is heavily going into the buildings right now, and so an audit of that to make
sure that those proceeds are accounted for and that the buildings
are getting done as they’re supposed to get done. So
that was the context of the meeting, it lasted about 30 minutes, and the next meeting will
be Tuesday, September 27 at 7:30 a.m. at the Olathe K-State
campus. That concludes my report. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Trustee Stewart.
And that takes us to our Collegial Steering Committee meeting. Trustee Drummond.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you, Madame Chair, we met this afternoon for a little over an
hour. And we started our discussion by seeking clarification
of the charge of the Collegial Steering Committee. There seems to be, not confusion,
but a desire to sort of clarify that a little bit, and Dr.
Calaway suggested that a small group of folks, and that includes me, will get together and
talk about, you know, what our charge really is, and to
get involved and get that on paper and so we’ll know from
year to year. As part of that discussion, we talked about the potential of the merging
role of the Collegial Steering and working on the side of the contract
negotiations that will start up again this year, perhaps as
a body that can prime the pump a little bit to resolve some of the smaller issues, or
at least provide feedback to the contract negotiations as they
go through, so we’re going to be working on that as well.
We also talked about an issue that carried over from last year. That pertains to emeriti
faculty teaching. We put that on hold, as you might remember,
for this fall, but took that back off the table, and the
association brought back the thought that perhaps we should work with this issue this
year, get it August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 48 clarified, make it part of negotiations of
the contract going forward. We think that we should move
forward for this spring with the faculty who want to teach and we have available sections
for them to teach, and we would pay them adjunct pay for
the spring. We’ll have to work with a contract and policy
and sort of get that all squared away and have sign-offs and all that. But we really
think the long-term resolution of this issue with emeritus faculty
will be to, how they’re compensated, will be to address that
in the negotiations that will be going forward this year, and make that part of the contract
and clear up any confusion and to set the compensation
so it would be appropriate for these times and to work with
that. Certainly our goal will be to make that budget neutral for the college and at the
same time be able to take advantage of the rich legacy and history
that many of our emeriti faculty have to bring to us, their
experience to teach some courses that they maybe have taught for 25 years and are very,
very effective at, and be able to take advantage of that
talent, but at a level we can afford to take advantage of that
talent is important to us as well. Be glad to receive any additional thoughts from President
or Judy regarding our meeting, and Jeff was there
as well, so. >> Dr. Calaway: The only thing I might add
is I thought we had a very, very good conversation and
relayed some opportunities and ways that we might be able to improve our goals and services
around student success, particularly in support of
our developmental programs. We talked about, you know,
kind of the right and most productive ways of getting those kinds of pieces of advice
into the system so we can work on that. There are clearly ways
that I think we can continue to take, you know, even
beyond the good work that’s happened in Dream Johnson County and previously Achieving
the Dream, and the support and success of our students.
After all is said and done, student success is the most
important issue, and so Jeff Anderson had some great comments, we thought, and we’re
going to get those into our academic structure, and we
also talked about the importance of getting those there right
away. And so I know Marilyn and her team are going to probably have some good conversations
around that. I think, you know, to the most important
point of, you know, all of us realize we’re in this together,
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 49
as far as the student, the student success agenda that we try to establish for our students.
And so, Jeff happens, with his colleagues, to be right
on the front line of seeing where some of our opportunities are
to excel and so we’ve talked about that and ways that we might be able to broaden
out our offerings to students and also get the best job for students
to keep them on a success path. I thought it was a very
good meeting and good success and so we’ll see where we go from here. But I think it
was a very, very fine conversation and appreciate the good
work of our faculty colleagues in making sure we’re headed in
the right path. >> Trustee Drummond: OK, that will conclude
my report, Madame Chair. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Thank you, Trustee Drummond.
And speaking of Jeff Anderson, that brings us
to our Faculty Association report. >> Jeff Anderson: Good evening. When the decision
was made about, oh some months back, to suspend the emeritus program, at the time
from my perspective it seemed like a good idea, because the
reality of it was is that the fact that across campus had been seeing benefits and salaries
being somewhat diminished or cut or, you know, stalled, however
you want to couch that, and so we thought it would
make sense for the emeritus folks to kind of share in that pain, if you will, and then
level that across the table there. So, you know, it never occurred
to me for a moment, actually, I said this tonight at the
Collegial Steering meeting, but it never occurred to me for a moment that the folks who have
been teaching on this emeritus contract for the
past number of years would be even interested in coming back
and teaching at an adjunct rate, because they had been teaching at a pro rata rate for all
these years, and now to cut that and go back to an adjunct
rate, I thought that would never happen. So next thing you
know, this word gets out that we’re suspending the program for the year and people are coming
out of the woodwork at me and saying that, you know,
I want to teach and I’ll be happy to teach at the adjunct
rate. And so I was really surprised when I heard that, and so it kind of forced me to
kind of step back and kind of rethink my view on this program
because it seems that if we can get these folks to come
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 50
back and teach who are, I don’t know all of them, but I know some of them, who are
very outstanding in the classroom, so the idea of getting them
to come back and teach at an adjunct rate is a pretty good deal
for the college. And so I thought well why not, why not try to push that forward, then.
And so I’m very happy tonight that we’re able to reach that
agreement, and it’s going to be for the spring semester only.
After that we’ll have a chance to step back and, actually, before that we’ll have a
chance to figure something out longer term, so I’m excited
about that possibility, too. I just had a question. I heard
something tonight for the first time. I want to make sure I heard this right. Something
that Trustee Musil had alluded to earlier, regard to the background
checks. The comment was when a faculty member goes
from assistant to associate to full professor, would they be subject to a background check?
OK. I thought that might create a reaction if that were
the case, I just wanted to… >> Dr. Korb: If they move from one position
to another. >> Jeff Anderson: OK, OK. I just want to clarify
that. That’s all I have. Questions? >> Vice Chair Rayl: Any questions? Thank you,
Mr. Anderson. We’re now at the second petitions and communications section. Petitions and
communications section of the Board agenda is a time for
members of the community to provide comments to the Board. As I mentioned earlier, comments
are limited to five minutes, unless a significant
number of people plan to speak. In that instance the Chair
may limit a person’s comments to less than five minutes. Presenters may choose to speak
at either the first or second petitions and communications
section, but not both. Prior to beginning any comments, we
ask that you state your name, address, city and state. And with that in mind, do we have
anyone at this time who would like to address the Board?
Seeing none, that brings us, that will close the petitions and
communications and bring us to the consent agenda.
The consent agenda is a portion of the agenda for the Board to consider in one motion, a
number of motions that are of routine nature, and I
would like to ask if at this time we have anyone who would like
August 18, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 51
to remove or consider separately any of the items on the consent agenda? Hearing none,
at this time I’ll entertain a motion to approve the consent
agenda. >> So moved.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Second? >> Trustee Drummond: Second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
>> Trustee Stewart: It’s time to get Musil to make the second.
>> Vice Chair Rayl: Hearing none, all in favor say aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Vice Chair Rayl: All opposed? Motion carries.
And I don’t believe we have an executive session
this evening, is that correct? >> Dr. Calaway: Not unless you have a desire
to have one. >> Vice Chair Rayl: Well, I don’t have a
strong desire to have one, although I didn’t follow through
on my earlier promise to get us out of here by 6. Nonetheless, that will bring us to the
end of the meeting and we’re adjourned.