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>> Chairman Weiss: I’d like to call to order the October 20, 2011, meeting of the Johnson
County Community College Board of Trustees, and we
will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. >> 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.
>> Chairman Weiss: Terri Schlicht, can you do the roll call and recognition of visitors,
please? >> Terri Schlicht: This evening’s visitors
include Richard Franz and ??? >> Chairman Weiss: All right, thank you for
being here. We’re now at the first of two petitions and
communications sections of the board agenda. And this is a time for the members of the
community to provide their comments to the board. Comments
are limited to five minutes, unless a significant number
of people plan on speaking. In that instance, the Chair may limit a person’s comments
to less than five minutes. Presenters may choose to speak either
at the first or second petitions and communications section, but not both. And prior to beginning
the comments, we ask you to state your name, your
address, city and state. And do we have anyone who would like to address the board at this
time? All right, seeing none, we will close the first
one. We’re going to have another opportunity later in the
meeting. And we’ll move to awards and recognitions, and Dr. Grove, what do you have for us?
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 2
>> Dr. Grove: Thank you, Chair Weiss. I’d like to ask Elisa Waldman to come to the podium
and receive an award from Chair Weiss. Elisa works
in our Small Business Development Center, and she
was recently selected as the 2011 State Star of the Kansas Small Business Development Center
Network, and as Star Performer for the Association of Small Business Development Centers, which
is a nationwide organization. These awards were
given to her because she exhibits initiative, creativity and
work ethic in helping clients realize their dream of owning their own small businesses.
So congratulations to you, Elisa.
>> Elisa Waldman: Thank you very much. (Applause) >> Chairman Weiss: And as a former business
owner, I can’t think of a place that would be more
fun to work in this campus than the Small Business Development Center, so congratulations
there. All right, Mr. Carter, do you have a lobbyist’s
report for us? >> *** Carter: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
members of the Board of Trustees. The good news
this month is state revenues are once again up. We’ve completed the first quarter of
the fiscal year, and September end-of-month earnings were $27 million
above expected revenues. Interestingly, $15.7 million of that is from the individual income
tax which has been relatively flat, if not somewhat down
over the past several months. Sales tax they’re calling flat at an increase of $6 million
more than they expected. It’s still an increase, but I
think when you look at the overall budget numbers, they’re just sort
of preparing themselves, bracing, and also taking into account that many of the numbers
in September will account for back-to-school purchases
in many cases. The numbers present an interesting picture. If
we continue on this trend right now, we’d be ending up with about $225 million in the
bank at the end of this fiscal year. That presents a good news-bad
news picture for legislators that are making the tough
budget decisions that we’ll be talking about throughout the course of the next legislative
session. November 4 is always sort of the halfway,
well it’s not halfway point for the fiscal year, but it’s the
looking-forward point where the consensus revenue estimating group gets together. It’s
a group of state October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 3 economists and university folks, folks that
do the fiscal policy in the legislative process get together and
they take a budget picture and an outlook if you will for what the coming budget year
looks like. That group will be getting together, again, on
November 4, and that is in large part what helps both the
governor and the legislature use as a base for formulating their budget numbers. I decided
to start with the budget uptick this month, because it was
good news. I’ve been talking about taxes for the past couple
of board meetings, and while there’s been no movement on the tax issue, that continues
to be in the rumor mill, what legislators have in mind,
what the governor’s office has in mind, are still somewhat
blurry right now. There is a little bit of an interesting flap,
if you will. The Lawrence Journal-World has requested an
open records request of the governor’s office for who is participating in the tax panel
discussions. The governor’s office has indicated that it
might take several weeks to provide that information, and that date
– it doesn’t exactly correspond with the convening of the legislature, but it comes
close. So we’ll see if that information produces anything for who
has been participating in the behind-the-scenes tax
discussions led by the administration. Interestingly, Senate President Steve Morris has formed a
tax panel made up of his tax chairman, Senator
Donovan, Les Donovan from Wichita. Also on that
committee will be *** Kelsey, Rich Longbine, Vicki Schmidt and Senator Tom Holland. Those
folks will begin taking a more public look, as it’s
being billed, at possible tax policy changes. Senator Morris
did that, formed that group, sort of in response to the fact that there’s been quite a bit
of discussion going on behind the scenes, and not much has been
discussed in the public. It’ll be interesting also to see how
the committee lines up. Senator Morris doesn’t always line up directly with the Brownback
administration, and the two people in particular that are chair and vice chair of this task
force are very conservative. One is an automobile dealership
owner – in fact, two people on the committee own
automobile dealerships. Those folks are very interested in a number of types of taxes,
as you might October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 4 imagine. So it’ll be interesting to see
what comes out of that group. No scheduled meetings are on the
books as of yet. We’re beginning to hear rumblings of K-12
finance, reformulating of the finance formula. What
should be of concern to those of you sitting around the table, and those in the listening
audiences, one of the proposals would be a 10-15 mill off the
top redistribution to areas that have lower property
valuations. That’s coming off the 20 mill statewide levy. That means people like Johnson
County schools lose. The other issue of concern would
be that while many school districts across the state have
shown support for their various districts by either enhancing or maintaining the budgets
through local sales tax options, or increasing the property
mill to whatever a lid might be, one of the discussion items
being discussed would be to remove, move those lids, and allow those districts that then
want to make up the difference, or maybe stay whole to
increase their local property tax. Again, something that we
need to be very concerned about as we continue to look at our own budget here at the community
college. The other component that was being discussed
before a group of school administrators was a
possible technical education grant. Now why it was being discussed at a KSDE-type function,
I’m not sure, since that’s part of the oversight
of the Board of Regents, and it could have been just, these are
some of the things that we’re going to be doing. I don’t have the specific details
on that, but I include that because that’s an important component
of the type of education that we provide as well.
Turning the page to redistricting. As we speak, that process should be just about concluded
as far as the 14 town hall meetings are concerned. The
committee has been on the road in Dodge City, Garden
City, Colby and Hays. And they’re wrapping up in Hays this afternoon. That process now
moves to the general legislative process. I can guarantee
you that many legislators, many interested parties continue to
draw maps and will continue to draw legislative district maps, both now and through the start
of the legislative session. Legislators have until
the middle or so of March to pass a bill that would include
maps for congressional redistricting in the House and Senate districts in the state and
forward that to the governor’s office for signature, then which
goes off to the Supreme Court for their review. The process
is if the court says that the maps aren’t workable, it goes back to the legislative
process and we start over. Legislators have until roughly June
10, or the filing deadline, to formulate those maps for this
particular round of redistricting. And there has been quite a bit of input, but no real
substantive progress made thus far.
Another bit of good news, you probably saw a press release and heard from college administrators
that we were the recipients of a Department of Labor grant to the tune of about $2.9 million.
Those dollars will assist in funding some high-tech
jobs related to the health technology systems, and it fits
nicely with the expansion of the Olathe campus that was just dedicated a week or two ago.
That was a result of a team effort, and a number of people
were continually reminding folks in Washington, D.C., of
the importance of those grants. And while the delegates’ offices don’t make those
decisions themselves, they play an important role in helping bring
those dollars back to Kansas. So a little bit of a pat on the
back for the team here at Johnson County Community College that helped bring those dollars here.
Finally, then, is an issue that we’ve been talking about for a couple of meetings. I’ve
included a bill that was introduced this past legislative
session and would’ve been one that I had in my reports.
However, it was a bill that never really went anywhere. The good news is it’s a bill that
was introduced through the Appropriations Committee, so it’s
still alive even though it never had a hearing. I believe
that it could serve as a good base for looking at some of the issues that concern us related
to publishing public notices in newspapers. And we find
ourselves in a bit of a quandary when it comes to that. A
couple of interesting points – it allows, and this bill speaks mainly to county and
city municipalities, but I believe it can be expanded to governing
bodies in general. Even if that’s not possible, we could still
use this basis for formulating one that, if you were so interested or so inclined in proposing
such, that would allow for the publication of public
notices on the Internet. It allows for papers, newspapers or
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 6
Internet notices, and the three components that are contained in this particular bill,
the Internet site must not be password-protected, it must be accessible
to members of the general public, and no fee shall be
charged for access to the information. I do believe it’s interesting as you read through
the bill that one of the components is for cities or municipalities
of first-class nature that if you’re using a newspaper –
utilizing a newspaper for your publication notices – the newspaper must be published
in the county. If one is not published in the county, then it
must be published in Kansas, the newspaper must be published
in the state of Kansas. We find ourselves, again, in a little bit of a problem when it
comes to that, even though we’re not treated as a city of first
class – we’re a separate type of governing body – I just found
that to be interesting. I might stop there. I bring it to you not as a proposal, that
bill could be brought up for a hearing and could be amended, and I
think that’s probably an easy route, but one of the things that
I have had conversations with Dr. Tompkins along with Dr. Calaway at the Regent level
would be to get their support. And he has indicated that they
would be supportive of our initiatives or our efforts to
change that law. It would be a tough climb. We know that the newspaper association would
likely be working hard against it, but I believe there’s
a way to incorporate them and include them in a way that
everyone benefits. So I would stop there and see if there’s any questions.
>> Chairman Weiss: Dr. Cook. >> Trustee Cook: Chairman Weiss, thank you.
Mr. Carter, I appreciate your optimism on the
revenue collection, but I believe the legislature still expects to operate with a 7% rainy day
fund, and if you take 7% of the budget, it’s still quite
a bit higher than the $200 million they’re proposing. So while
we might believe the revenue is on the uptick, I still believe there’s a big gap to go
before anyone should feel comfortable that we’re in really good
shape. >> *** Carter: You’re absolutely correct,
and we have a number of other obligations that will be
coming due as well, that will require that type of money to pay the bills.
>> Chairman Weiss: Any other questions or comments? Trustee Sharp.
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 7
>> Trustee Sharp: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know if this is necessarily a question
for Mr. Carter, or for our budgeteers, but the main
problem with this piece of legislation, the publishing, the
publications legislation has always been that people are afraid to go against their local
papers, and it makes sense for everybody, everybody sitting
in this room understands and thinks that, yeah, you should
be able to post these public notices on the Internet, but the Press Association is ardently
opposed because that’s where they get the bulk of
their revenue stream, which makes sense why they would
oppose it. But my question is for our organization – how much do we spend in a year on average,
or how much do we have budgeted to spend just to
buy newsprint for our publications? >> Julie Haas: Between 9 and 10 thousand dollars.
>> Trustee Sharp: A year? And we print, we publish in what used to be The Sun, now we
have to publish in The Star?
>> Julie Haas: No, right now The Legal Record is the first one…
>> Trustee Sharp: OK. >> Julie Haas: …but we could also do Gardner’s
News and Shawnee Dispatch. >> Trustee Sharp: OK, and does that, do we
know if that’s, I guess we wouldn’t know if that’s
average for the other surrounding… >> Julie Haas: Well, the prices for The Sun
and prices for The Legal Record are very similar, that’s
the only comparison I have. >> Trustee Sharp: I was just curious, thank
you. >> Chairman Weiss: All right. Any other questions
or comments? >> Dr. Calaway: Mr. Chairman, if I might?
>> Chairman Weiss: Yes. >> Dr. Calaway: The only thing I would add
to conversation and to Mr. Carter’s comments is that in
fact, today, at the Regents’ meeting there was discussion about this issue and the Regents
do have that October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 8 on their agenda for first read. And there
was some conversation very similar to what we’ve had here
today, the plusses and the minuses and the challenges, also with the Press Association.
So, if you go through on first read, there were a couple
questions of us and shared with them some of the challenges
we face with getting public information out. And also, I think, if we would talk to Mitch
Borchers from our Procurement area, he would say to us,
today we get a high percentage of our responses to RFPs and
some of our other bids actually through our Internet activity as compared to say, when
we put it in the paper, so we’re actually getting a much
broader response in that regard. It certainly wouldn’t be, it’s not
going to be an easy test, but it’s something that, you know, would certainly help us in
a real way. >> Trustee Sharp: Thank you.
>> Chairman Weiss: I’d just like to add that there doesn’t seem to be anything in
this bill that addresses the issue of how accessible or easy
to find that information might be on a governing body’s
website. >> *** Carter: Yeah, and it doesn’t even
speak to a specific website, so I don’t disagree that there
are needs for improvement to the particular piece of legislation.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, thank you. Anything else? Mr. Carter, thank you. We’ll move
to committee reports and recommendations and
begin with the Management Committee and Trustee Dr.
Drummond. >> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much,
Mr. Chair, I would direct your attention to tab 2.
Behind tab 2 you’ll find the paperwork pertaining to the Management Committee, pages 1-18. We’d
like to begin tonight by suggesting that we met
on the 10th of October, and you’ll find the recommendations
of which there are four, on pages 1-5 in the board packet. The first recommendation you’ll
find is a proposed amendment to Board Policy 217.06,
which refers to the service of alcoholic beverages on
campus-owned properties. The actual recommended policy and operating procedures are featured
on pages 6-8 if you want to turn to that in your
board packet. Specifically these revisions amend operating
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 9
procedures and policy to include the Carlsen Center Recital Hall, Carlsen Center stages
and staging areas, and Olathe Health Education Center
Room 102 and respective lobbies. The administration and the
Management Committee looked at this very closely and it is our recommendation of the Management
Committee that the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation of the college administration
to approve the amendment to the Board Policy
217.06, Service of Alcoholic Beverages, as shown on pages
6-8 in the board packet, and I would so move that.
>> Second. >> Chairman Weiss: Any discussion?
>> Trustee Musil: Mr. Chair, I simply had a question about…you got rid of some of
the really specific restrictions which made some sense
to allow some more flexibility. One of the things it looks
like you got rid of to me was, the president in the past had the right to establish rules
and regulations to implement the policy. And that looks like
it’s been stricken. Was there a particular reason for that? It
seemed to me like that was a discretionary function that made sense to rest in Dr. Calaway’s
lap, but…it’s at the…
>> Dr. Calaway: I think what we’ve done is just kind of simplify the language under,
on page 7, top of the page, where it says the procedures
shall be in full compliance – you know, it’s dictated by my
office, will be in full compliance with laws that govern all this, so, we’re just trying
to simplify it a bit. >> Trustee Musil: I see where you’re still
in charge. >> Dr. Calaway: I was yesterday. (Laughter)
I’ve been gone most of today, so. >> Trustee Musil: If you’re comfortable,
I’m comfortable. >> Chairman Weiss: Trustee Sharp.
>> Trustee Sharp: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a quick question. As I was reading through
this, tell me if I’m – I’m kind of confused.
On the first page under, well, on page 9, under the first bullet A, it
says no alcoholic beverage sale is permitted, and then if you turn to the next page under
category 2, it October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 10 allows cash bars or catered or ticketed. When
I went to an event probably a week or two ago, where they
sold tickets in the atrium, you were sold a ticket and then you gave the bartender your
ticket. I didn’t know how that policy works in with the new
and if that’s in conflict where no alcoholic beverage sale is
permitted and then cash bar. I just didn’t understand that.
>> Dr. Calaway: I’m going to turn to our legal counsel because this is some of our
legalese that we ask some advice on.
>> Mark Ferguson: I have to say that I have not reviewed these changes, so…(inaudible).
>> Tanya Wilson: I have not either. >> Dr. Calaway: So maybe what we should do
is bring these back. Go through the legal office and
make sure that we bring those back to answer that question.
>> Mark Ferguson: I would simply say that we did recently renew the liquor license and
we did suggest that the policy be changed to at least
include other areas and then to be in compliance with the
updated liquor license that we get with the state and with the city of Overland Park,
but I’ve not been asked to review this specific policy, but
I’d be happy to do that. >> Jay Glatz: There might be a distinction
between special events and regular sales. We’re not in the
business of having an open bar regularly, but when it comes to a special event, that
creates kind of an exception to the rule.
>> Trustee Sharp: Right. >> Jay Glatz: That’s a part of what this
is about. >> Trustee Sharp: I just didn’t know if
we should have, you know, a notwithstanding in there or
something. There’s this blanket comment about no alcoholic beverage sales permitted
and then later it says we can. So I just didn’t know if that
was in conflict. Am I the only one that read that wrong?
>> Dr. Calaway: The one thing I would share is that we are voting on the policy. The operating
procedure is one we can tweak. So that might be part…what we might want to do is take
consideration October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 11 of the policy, and then if there are issues
as we work with Tanya and Mark, we can tweak the procedure
(inaudible). But I think those are good questions that we need to make sure we just double-check
that we’re following right practice.
>> Jay Glatz: Just for further clarification, to directly respond to your question, we have
a liquor license for the (inaudible) and then the caterer’s
license is for the other areas and so that’s where the
>> Trustee Cook: Mr. Chair, I’m ready to vote for it. I think it’s clear between
what the policy is and what the procedures are to back it up. I didn’t
really see the conflict at all that’s being discussed, so I’d
be ready to vote on the motion. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, well let me
ask, is it the feeling of the board that we want to separate
the policy from the procedure and just vote on the policy, or do we want to proceed with
the entire thing?
>> Dr. Calaway: Actually the board’s responsibility is to deal with the procedure and then the
policy… >> Chairman Weiss: Oh, the procedure? OK.
>> Dr. Calaway: I’m sorry, with the policy, and then the procedure is more administrative
and if there’s, you know, tweaking that we need
to do, then we can kind of do that offline, but really the board
would just be voting on the policy. >> Chairman Weiss: All right.
>> Trustee Drummond: I think, perhaps Mr. Chairman, if it’s acceptable, what we could
do is vote on the policy tonight and just for review
bring back the procedures after our attorneys take a look at it
and administration revise it, just FYI for us, if that’s acceptable to the board.
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 12
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, we have both a motion and a second on board policy 217.06,
Service of Alcoholic Beverages. Any further discussion
before we vote? All right, all those in favor, please
signify by saying aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Chairman Weiss: Any opposed? Motion passes. Please continue.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much, appreciate that. Next recommendation pertains
to our initiative to maintain and upgrade our information
system, network infrastructure. This is under the
annual contract for network and infrastructure equipment and services. The recommendation
is addressed on page 3 of the packet. The interim,
the initial contract would be from November 1, 2011,
through October 31, 2012. And this contract would be renewable for two additional years
in one-year increments upon the approval of both parties.
We had 11 vendors, so it was a pretty robust group of
people. It was advertised, all the proper things have taken place, so it is my recommendation
that we take the recommendation of the Management
Committee that the Board of Trustees accept the
recommendation of the college administration to approve the proposal from CDW Government
LLC for the establishment of an annual contract for
network infrastructure equipment and services in an amount
not to exceed $1,050,000.00. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, do we have a
second? >> I’ll second.
>> Trustee Musil: Quick question, Mr. Chair. >> Chairman Weiss: Yes.
>> Trustee Musil: Since this bid was done based on percentage discounts, I assume it
is of a comparable base price? We’re really getting…this
is the low bid? >> Dr. Calaway: This is the low bid, right.
>> Trustee Drummond: This is the low bid, yeah.
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 13
>> Trustee Musil: All right, thank you. >> Trustee Drummond: Good question.
>> Chairman Weiss: Any other discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Chairman Weiss: Any opposed? Motion passes.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much. On pages 3 and 4 you’ll find the recommendation
for the renewal of annual contract for office
supplies. On September 17th of 2009, the trustees established
an annual contract with OfficeMax for an initial term of one year with an option to renew for
four additional years in one-year increments. Upon
the approval of both parties, this is renewal for period
November 1, 2011, through October 31, 2012, and represents the second of four annual renewals.
It is the recommendation of the Management Committee
that the Board of Trustees accept the recommendation of the college administration
to approve the renewal of the annual contract for office
supplies with OfficeMax Inc. at a total amount, total annual expenditure not to exceed $240,000,
and I would so move that.
>> Chairman Weiss: OK. >> Second.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, we have a second on that, any discussion? All those in favor,
please signify by saying aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Chairman Weiss: Any opposed? Motion passes.
Please continue. >> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much.
Next recommendation pertains to the renewal of
annual contract for captioning services. This perhaps is a little complicated and took a
little bit of time to read through it for you, but essentially these
are for students who are in a classroom and they are realtime
captioning, the vendor’s captionist attends a class with a student. There are two computers
and this October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 14 captionist types in all of the conversations
that are going on in the class. The student’s able to read that
in real time and then gets a copy of that. It costs us, depending on the time spent,
but at least a minimum of two hours at $100 per session. These services
are utilized when there is a hearing-impaired student
who is not able to understand sign language, so that’s kind of a special circumstance.
In 2010, in January, we requested proposals, we had a
contract established, and on January 21, the Board of
Trustees approved the establishment of annual contract with CCC Services LLC for a term
of one year with option for renewal three additional years.
So this is what we had before, 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 the
annual contract for captioning services with CCC Services
LLC, at a total amount, a total annual expenditure not to exceed $100,000, and I would so move
that. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, do we have a
second? >> Trustee Cook: Second.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right. Any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying
aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Chairman Weiss: Any opposed? Motion passes, please continue.
>> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We’d like to point back to
the minutes that you have in your booklet and
you’ll see that there was a discussion of housekeeping
services, and we’ve had that discussion for the past several months. We had again
a robust discussion regarding this and I’ll defer to Dr. Calaway
to kind of explain the steps that we talked about and the
administration is going to go forward with. >> Dr. Calaway: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to
Dr. Drummond’s request, as we discussed in the
Management Committee this month, we were asked to go through a process by the board of looking
at our budgets, looking at places where we might
potentially have opportunities to save money for the
institution, redirect those dollars into instruction and other student support kinds of activities,
and in fact October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 15 we went through a host of assessments of ways
that we might do some of those things. One of the efforts
that we undertook as a part of our PBS process was to look at some outsourcing opportunities
for the institution. One, just one source of places
where we could find funds to support students and instruction.
The administration through the process that we used with PBS actually had fairly lengthy
consideration, discussion related to opportunities that we
might have with the IT area, with the bookstore, food service
and others, and really, because of the nature of how we do what we do, and in some cases
the profits that we make through some of those services, felt
that those issues weren’t ones that really would save us
anything. In fact, if anything, may have eventually cost us additional dollars.
But we thought housekeeping was one that would be worthy of some extended look. So as you
know we spent the last several months exploring
those possibilities. We’ve had several opportunities to hear
from our staff, to get their feedback and advice. The administration took your charge
pretty seriously, and so we continued on with those opportunities,
and as you know, we did receive actually five bids for
outsourcing services. As we did some comparisons of the kinds of dollars we might save through
outsourcing as compared to what we might be able to do internally through cost savings
and efficiency measures, we found that we were able to save
across the entire institution about $750,000 in salary
savings. About $550,000 or so of those dollars came though some attrition that we had over
the course of the last year or so within the housekeeping
services. Actually, that attrition and some of those savings
brought us about into what we found from the outsourcing studies about to the place where
we were staffed at about the same levels as some of
what we have kind of defined as industry standard, but where
each of those outsourcing services said for the amount of square footage that we have
in our physical plant we would need, you know, as far as housekeeping
services. So it looks like we’re about the right
place based on industry standards. The big difference between then where we are
and what the potential cost savings might be through
an outsourcing comes as a result of our very rich and robust benefit package and actually
salaries that October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 16 are higher than the levels that the outsource
companies would pay. And so, as you all know through the
conversations we’ve had over the months here in board meetings and also private discussions,
some of the things that we’ve really been cautious
about or wanting to watch are in fact the extras that we get
from people who know us and people who have been with us for a long time and there is,
you know, some benefit to the premiums that we pay.
We do think that there are additional dollars that we can save through implementation of
additional efficiency measures. Some of those things
might include looking at how we schedule classes and the
like that might begin to allow us to close some buildings earlier in the evening and
adjusting some shifts to start earlier. Eventually shutting lights
off at 2 or 3 in the morning as compared to say, letting the
lights be on all night. We think we can save, you know, upwards of a couple hundred thousand
dollars there as well. All that being said, we think
that we can find some additional efficiencies and
effectiveness measures through some of the work that we’re doing with our existing
staff. All that to be said, we also had pretty dramatic concerns.
Each of the companies that we worked with said that they
could maintain the cost price for about five years. What that would’ve meant in real
life is that if in fact some of our current employees moved to those
outsourced companies they would have taken a
significant pay cut, significant benefit cut, and then have been frozen for about five years.
We just didn’t think that was realistic for anyone to expect
to really happen. So all those things in consideration, also
what the additional costs might be for us if we went to
severance packages and unemployment costs and the like, we think that we’d be at least
in the best in equal place by maintaining the course that
we’re on and finding additional cost savings through
efficiency. We don’t have an action item on the agenda this evening because it’s
the recommendation of the administration that we maintain our housekeeping
services as they stand with the team that we have
in place today. And part of what we will continue to do and commit to the board is continuing
to watch where there might be cost savings available
and put those into place. As in fact we might have some
additional attrition, as a for instance, over the course of the next coming years. One of
the things we might explore rather than putting on additional
full-time staff is maybe deal with part-time support in the
short run, and then maybe start to outsource buildings in a building by building kind of
a situation. But not to lay off any of our existing staff,
but if it would happen as a result of attrition, kind of phase in an
outsourced approach. That way we wouldn’t negatively impact the existing personnel.
So we think that we can find pretty significant savings. And
we think that while this has been a difficult process and very
trying for our team across the board, we think it was the right thing to do to do the outsourcing
study. But we do really have good confidence in the
work that they do and so we look forward to the board’s
consideration of us continuing the path that we’ve been existing on and not look to an
outsourcing mechanism for our housekeeping. So, that being
said, that would be our recommendation which would
mean that we wouldn’t really need a cause or an action by the board, just an informational
thing for your consideration.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right. OK. >> Dr. Calaway: I can take any questions.
>> Trustee Drummond: (inaudible) Dr. Calaway. Any questions?
>> Chairman Weiss: I’d just like to make a statement, and I’ll open it up for board
comments as well. I’m very pleased at the way this has
turned out. I believe that we owe a duty to both the taxpayers
and to our employees and I think that we’ve found a very constructive way here to satisfy
both of those, and that we continue to reap the benefit of
our hard working and loyal employees. And so I’m very
pleased with the way that this has turned out. So thank you for that report. Anyone
else got a comment? Trustee Musil first and then Dr. Cook.
>> Trustee Musil: When I first came to my first board meeting in March, before the election,
and learned about this issue and members of the
custodial staff contacted me, it was obvious this was going
to be a difficult issue for the college and I don’t think there’s any more difficult
human resources October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 18 budgeting issue than when you’re going to
ask people to leave the employment of whether it’s a private
business or the college, so this was going to be tough and I think at most the best thing
we’ve done here is at least allow soft landings through attrition
or whatever. I heard lots of complaints about the process.
I don’t think there’s a satisfactory process to anybody when you’re going through this.
I mean, if we do it quickly, so that there’s certainty, then
the college would be accused of not studying it, not taking into
account everybody, not having a process. If we take too long, we left a lot of families
in limbo for a long time and that’s unfortunate and cannot be
an easy time. But I think the process ultimately worked in a
fashion that I can support the recommendation. I do think that the point you made, Dr. Calaway,
that it can’t be business as usual going forward.
I mean, we’re going to continue to face the pressure to reduce
non-academic costs so we can put dollars into teaching. We’re going to need the continued
engagement of the custodial staff in finding ways to
do that and not just – this is not just the custodial staff, it’s
everybody that’s employed here and those of us that are here voluntarily. So that engagement’s
going to be critical and we’re going to have to continue
to be creative to find ways because those dollars saved
are dollars that we can help a burgeoning population of students that are already stretching
us, so I support the recommendation. I’m glad we
went through the process. I think it’s been enlightening to a
lot of people about where we stand compared to the private sector. It helps us clarify
our values to some extent, but it doesn’t take off the pressure
to continue to find cost savings whether it’s in housekeeping
or IT or anywhere else. Thank you. >> Chairman Weiss: Dr. Cook.
>> Trustee Cook: Yeah, Trustee Musil said it well, and I’ll support the recommendation
as well; however, I believe it’s always important
to be looking at operational efficiency. And sometimes by
nature we become complacent and begin to take things for granted. And that’s just not
what I would like to represent, and so I would always want us
to be looking at how we can become more efficient, no
matter what the process or the system is. October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 19 >> Chairman Weiss: Thank you, Dr. Cook. Anyone
else got a comment? All right, Dr. Drummond, would you like to continue then?
>> Trustee Drummond: Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and for those comments. Appreciate
everybody’s support as we’ve gone through this trying time and think we’ve landed
in the right spot. I would point your attention to pages 12 and
13 in your packet for the capital acquisitions and
improvements status report. We study this very carefully every month to make sure we’re
on schedule and on budget, and I’m happy to report to
you that we are. I’d also like to point out that the opening of
the Olathe Health Education Center is, you’ve all been through it, you’ve seen what an
excellent job Rex and the staff have done. A building we can
be very proud of and when you study the financials on it, the
building that we built at much less than what we thought it might be, and that’s very
helpful to do that. So Rex and his team have done a great job.
If you turn to pages 14-16, you’ll see another good job done
by Denise and her team – our IT infrastructure plan. Again, IT systems are kind of ignored
until something doesn’t work and then we all kind
of get pretty upset, and Denise and her team do an
excellent job of keeping people from being too upset by keeping the system going. And
so as we continue to improve the system, find efficiencies,
obviously it costs money but I think it’s a great
benefit, and they do a wonderful job and I just want to applaud them for that. And so
thank you, Denise and your team, and Rex and your team, for
what you’ve done and that concludes my report unless
there’s questions. >> Dr. Calaway: If I might just, Mr. Chairman,
we had a major scare this past week with Denise in a
pretty major car accident. She, through very quick reactions of her own I think saved her
life, but we’re very, very happy that you’re sitting with
us today and feeling better and back today. And I know you’re
still sore, but you know, we’re very glad to have you with us.
>> Trustee Drummond: I would second that, wow. All right, thank you very much.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, Learning Quality is next, and Trustee Sharp, please.
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 20
>> Trustee Sharp: Didn’t know I was going to be giving this report. OK. Pardon?
>> We didn’t meet, so. >> Trustee Sharp: Pardon? Oh, we didn’t
meet. >> We didn’t meet.
>> Trustee Sharp: Oh, yeah. I thought it was on the agenda!
>> Yes, you are. >> Trustee Sharp: Oh, I am on the agenda?
>> Chairman Weiss: All right. >> Trustee Sharp: OK, we didn’t meet, so
I have no report. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, thank you. We’ll
move on to the Human Resources Committee, and
Trustee Rayl. >> Trustee Rayl: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The
HR Committee did meet. We met on October 5 and a
large portion of the meeting was devoted to a very robust discussion centering around
a comprehensive compensation study. And as you may recall,
there was a commitment made by the college that once the
Hay salary study was fully implemented that the college would embark on a compensation
study that would include our benefit package as well
as salaries to make sure that we were within market norms.
And part of the impetus for that was, well, two-fold, I suppose. First that because it
had been a number of years since a salary study had been conducted
at all, the Hay study revealed that we were considerably out of disparity with the market
and it took us a while to catch up. A while being three
years, actually, to implement, fully implement the Hay study results. So a commitment we
made that we wouldn’t wait quite so long the next time,
and so it was the desire of the college to embark on that
relatively quickly and to issue an RFP that would in effect break up that compensation
study over a period of three years, with the first year
being dedicated to one segment of the college employee
population and then the next year, another segment, etc. And the decision was made that
the best place to start would be with the faculty.
It’s my understanding, and I think I was involved in some of those early discussions,
that part of the reason the faculty was selected is because
there’s a relatively small number of categories of employees,
it makes the study easier to do. And since we’ve never done a full compensation study
to include benefits, it just seemed like the logical
place to begin. There’s been a little bit of an expression by the
faculty that they would prefer not to be the first group and, as they have expressed, their
reasons are two-fold. First that they felt that there
was a risk that the compensation study would be rushed in order
to have it completed before negotiations began, and certainly that might lead to some fault
in the results, so there was that concern. And then the other
concern would be that perhaps the results of the study, if it
was completed in time, would drive the negotiations and maybe that shouldn’t be the thing driving
negotiations. And so I tell you all of that as kind of background
of our discussion that ensued, which as I said took
a considerable portion of the meeting. And at the end of that discussion we kind of reached
a compromise, if you will, in that we feel that
it’s prudent to move forward with the study as we had
planned, beginning with the faculty as the first group. However, there’s a commitment
as part of that RFP process that it will be allowed to run
its course and take whatever time it takes. If that gets finished
in time for that data to be available for negotiations, then it may well be at least
a part of the information that’s considered. And if it’s not going
to be finished in time, then we’re certainly not going to put it on
a fast track in order to get that finished. So as it stands right now, that RFP process
will be moving forward and the vendor that’s selected will
ultimately determine what that timeline is going to be and
how quickly that will be completed. So I’m sure that we’ll be hearing more about that
in the future months.
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 22
There was also a discussion of a new policy that’s being proposed regarding social media.
There are two versions of that policy if you will – one
that’s applicable to students, one that’s applicable to faculty
and staff – and a copy of the proposed policies are included in your board packet. I’ll
refer you to pages 21 and 22. Those are being presented to the
board as a first read tonight because they are new policies.
Certainly in these times of the increased proclivity of social media both in the workplace
and among our student body, it’s important to recognize
and make sure that we are in a position to address inappropriate
conduct that occurs on social media that may put the college at risk. So, that’s the
purpose for those policies and I’ll ask that my colleagues
take an opportunity to read through those as a first read and then
we should be in a position to take further action on those next month.
We also entertained several revisions to policies and I would direct your attention to pages
23 through, let me get this right here, 35 of
your board packet. And while it may look as though, when
you’re looking at the page and you see all these lines and new type, it may look as though
this is a dramatic revision of policies. It is actually
revisions that are designed to clarify and correct some syntax
and semantic errors on the one hand to make them clearer and easier to understand, and
then to make sure that we have proper employee classifications
and things like that in the policy. There are no
substantive changes in any of these policies and so we felt that it would be appropriate
to bring these changes to the board as a recommendation tonight.
I hope that you’ve all had an opportunity to read
through those, and again, there are no substantive changes in the policies that really would
require any further explanation other than there were
some things that were confusing or just minor errors that
needed to be clarified. And if it’s at the pleasure of the Chair, if I could consolidate
these recommendations, I think that might…
>> Chairman Weiss: And I believe those are listed on page 20. Do we have any objections
to consolidating those into one motion? All right,
please proceed then. October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 23 >> Trustee Rayl: OK, with that guidance, it
is the recommendation of the Human Resources Committee that the Board of Trustees accept
the recommendation of the college administration to
approve the amendments to board policies 417.01 – Voluntary Retirement, 419.10 – Tuition
Reimbursement, 419.13 – Vacation, and 419.14 – Holidays, as is shown in the board packet.
And I’ll make that motion.
>> Second. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, any discussion?
All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Chairman Weiss: Any opposed? Motions pass.
>> Trustee Musil: Mr. Chairman? >> Chairman Weiss: Yes.
>> Trustee Musil: May I ask a question about the compensation study? When you say the faculty
compensation study, does that include adjunct as well as full-time faculty? How are we parsing
up the term “faculty”?
>> Trustee Rayl: Yes. >> Trustee Musil: It will include adjunct.
OK. And I assume when we talk about comprehensive, the
policies that we just passed, the changes in those, those are the kind of benefit items
that will be compared in the study – vacation time, holiday
pay, tuition reimbursement, in addition to health benefits
and retirement benefits and everything else. When it says comprehensive, it means about
every benefit you get with respect to the package? OK.
>> Dr. Calaway: Sabbaticals also, anything that would be part of a compensation package.
>> Trustee Rayl: Right. >> Dr. Calaway: And the reason for separating
is, you know, some of those are different for faculty
than they would be for other employees. October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 24 >> Trustee Musil: I was struck when I read
the minutes of the meeting about that there was concern
that the studies might become the focus of negotiations and I…
>> ?: That’s a good point. >> Trustee Musil: I think that’s the point
of the studies and I don’t know how they’re going to come
out, but the main focus of our, whatever we do with any employee here in the next couple
of years is going to be the economy. But the other focus
should be this comprehensive study of where we are and
what our values are and where we want to be in relation to the market. I think you all
have done that in the past in response to the Hay study, so
I was a little confused when I read that. I think I understand it
with your explanation today. >> Trustee Rayl: And Mr. Chair, if I can add…and
to be candid, I completely agree with you. And
that was a little bit of the focus of our robust discussion, if you will, is certainly
I share your opinion that a compensation study should in part drive
the negotiations as it relates to compensation. And I expressed
– I can’t speak for Trustee Cook – but I expressed a concern that if we were not
allowed to or I guess if the desire was not to have us use a full compensation
study in negotiations, what would we use, given
that there was some concern about the data that was used during the last negotiations.
I think that’s certainly going to be a topic of conversation
as we move into negotiations and, you know, what
information will be considered, because certainly compensation will be a topic during negotiations.
And so I share your concern, and that was certainly
one of the issues that was being discussed during our
meeting. >> Chairman Weiss: Thank you. Do you have
anything else to add to your report? >> Trustee Cook: Chairman Weiss?
>> Chairman Weiss: Yes. >> Trustee Cook: And I can’t speak for Trustee
Drummond, but I think that a couple of years ago
we began to ask the question: Is whatever program we have sustainable over time? And
I think with that October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 25 we’ve taken the approach that as we look
longer term, is this something that we can in fact, in reality,
sustain two years from now, three years from now, with the resources we have available?
And so I think Trustee Drummond put us on a good course in
that kind of spirit. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, thank you. Yes,
Trustee Sharp. >> Trustee Sharp: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A quick question back on the social media policy. It
links, or it provides some very, very basic, generic information, but then it said “provide
a link to the social media guidelines.” Can we get a copy
of those, or do they exist yet? >> Trustee Rayl: I think that’s a work in
progress, and as with most policies, oftentimes the policy
comes first and then those procedures are kind of flushed out as we move forward, so
that piece, it’s my understanding is still a work in progress,
would that…? >> Dr. Calaway: And as it says in the board
packet, that’s exactly where we’re at is the procedures
are currently a work in progress based on some of the feedback we get this evening.
>> Trustee Sharp: Thank you. >> Chairman Weiss: All right. Seeing nothing
else, we’ll move to the president’s recommendations for action and begin with our treasurer’s
report and Trustee Dr. Drummond. >> Trustee Drummond: Thank you very much,
Mr. Chair. I direct your attention to tab 4, and the
treasurer’s report you’ll find on pages 37-47, and I will assume you’ve read every
line and understand every number, but I’ll just highlight a
few things. Excuse me? (Laughter) It’s hard not to laugh right
now but I’m doing my very best to keep a straight face and go forward with a very mundane
treasurer’s report. It’s good to liven it up a little
bit. Our report covers the first two months of this fiscal year ending
August 31. You’ll see if you’ve studied this report, which I know you have, we have
state aid payments of $10,603,000 and change. We also had a tax
distribution of about just under $4 million. That will
actually be reflected in next month’s report. As we’ve studied the expenditures, they
are all well within operating funds and budgetary limits. We’re
in really good shape there. I’d point out on page 47, there’s
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 26
some anomalies in terms of when cash came and when cash left pertaining to financial
aid. There’s a distribution of cash in August, and then received
the cash from the government in September and that
will be reflected there as well. The other thing I’d like to point out on 47, which
is probably the very most important part, is that at the bottom
of the balance sheet you’ll see unencumbered balance of
$93,495,000 and change, and that puts us in a very good position and I think we’ll have
a little more discussion about that when we have our retreat
in just two days about how we’re going to respond to the
nice cash balance. With all that being said, our finances are in really, really good shape,
and I think that’s a strong, strong proof of the work
of this board, the excellent work of the administration, and the
continual work of all of us together to try to make our institution very strong and robust
as has been said tonight. And with that, I would recommend
the college administration that the Board of Trustees
approve the treasurer’s report for the month of August 2011, subject to audit.
>> Second. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, we have a motion
and a second, any further discussion on that item?
All right, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
>> All: Aye. >> Chairman Weiss: Any opposed? Motion passes.
All right, and does that conclude your treasurer’s report?
>> Trustee Drummond: Yes, it does. Thank you very much.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, we’ll move to the month report to the board by college
president Dr. Calaway.
>> Dr. Calaway: Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Under tab 5 you’ll see the
monthly report for October, and I would just point
out one or two items on the first page, and I know you have a
chance to read through that document of all the good things happening here at the institution,
and updates of all of what’s going on. But I
would just again point out and congratulate Elisa Waldman, who
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 27
is one of our staff consultants for the Small Business Development Center. You had a chance
to meet her a bit earlier today, and we really celebrate
her recognition as not only a Kansas star, but nationally
for the work that she’s done through the Small Business Development Center. She does
a great job for us and is one of those real stars of our institution,
and she’s been a tremendous asset as we’ve looked at
how our college can become an economic development engine for our community.
Also, point out that the college hosted a number of events this month including the
women’s heart health event that was held on September 10,
we had 114 attendees, and the event was co-sponsored with
Women’s Heart International, and we’re very, very pleased to continue to be a part
of that group and work with them on keeping women healthy. I
congratulate Dr. Wolfskill and his team over at the Police
Academy. I guess about 10 days ago, we had the graduation of our 100th Police Academy.
And I believe Dr. Wolfskill told me, I think I saw a picture
on their website, that he was in the first academy that was
done here at the college and he really doesn’t have much more gray hair today than he did
back 100 academies ago. He’s done a great job for
us, he’s transitioned into that role, he really hits it out of the
park for us, and to Jerry and the team, we congratulate you on a great job. The only
thing you didn’t do very well that night was select who was speaking,
and I had the honor of doing that presentation and
sitting with Dr. Wolfskill that evening. One of the highlights was the opportunity to have
several of the graduates of the first academy in to visit
with us along with our first academy commander. I know he’s,
they’re good friends with Dr. Wolfskill and done a great job for us and our entire
community, so we just congratulate you and I’d ask us all to give
a round of applause to Dr. Wolfskill and the team. (Applause)
Also, our very own Trustee Musil was just recently recognized by the Blue Valley Schools
as one of the 2011 Friends of Education, and we congratulate
you on that recognition and look forward to a great
celebration in recognition of the good work that you do out in our community and particularly
for the Blue Valley Schools and congratulate you on
that. And then also, just to close, we did receive notice
from the county clerk that the 2011 tax levy rates are in and actually ours went down,
to look to Don October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 28 Perkins, by about .02 of a mill. And so actually
what that means is that the assessed value for the county
is up just very, very slightly, which is great news because we’re trending up rather than
down and as you know we started our initial budgetary projections
with a projection of maybe as much as 4% decline. We
narrowed that to 1% or 1.25% and I think eventually to just a little bit under flat, and it came
out actually a little bit ahead, so Don’s done
a great job of helping keep us, keeping us in the right path and
track, and the good news is that we’re actually going to have a very, very small reduction
for our tax payers this year. So pleased to share that
bit of information and thank the board for their good leadership
on that. Mr. Chairman, that would end my report although I’d be pleased to answer any questions
you may have.
>> Chairman Weiss: Dr. Drummond. >> Trustee Drummond: Just for clarification,
Dr. Calaway. We do have more than one academy class a year, right?
>> Dr. Calaway: Yes, sir, we have…(laughter). Yes.
>> Trustee Drummond: I thought so. >> Dr. Calaway: It wasn’t 100 years of academies.
As Dr. Wolfskill’s kind of schooled me, we’ve
averaged about four each year for a number of years. I’m not sure if it’s been all
the way back, but when was our first academy?
>> Jerry Wolfskill: 1972. >> Dr. Calaway: 1972, so. They’ve done a
great job all the way through. >> Trustee Drummond: Great job.
>> Dr. Calaway: We’ll get you all copies of the pictures from the website.
>> Trustee Drummond: World class. >> Dr. Calaway: They are.
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 29
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, any other comments or questions? I’d also like to congratulate
Professor Leiker on his new book on The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory, sounds
like a very interesting book, so. >> Dr. Calaway: Also, Dr. Leiker has Bill
Curtis in tomorrow evening. He’ll be doing a lecture in
our scholar series and we’re very excited about that activity. So if you’re a Bill
Curtis fan, come and join us tomorrow.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, thank you. All right, I don’t believe we have any old business
to bring to the board and I don’t think that we have
any new business as well. All right, in that case we will move
on to reports by board liaisons, and we will begin, Trustee Dr. Cook with the Kansas Association
of Community College Trustees.
>> Trustee Cook: Thank you, Chairman Weiss. The committee has not met since our last meeting.
Our next meeting is December 4 and 5, in Independence. And so we will be attending that meeting.
I do believe though that the presidents have been
meeting for a minute or two in the last couple days, and I
would defer the latest and greatest to Dr. Calaway.
>> Dr. Calaway: Thank you, Dr. Cook. Yes, we spent the last two days up in Topeka interacting
with both the Regents but also KACCT. I’m pleased to report that at today’s community
college focused event with the Regents, we were able to have
two panels that presented to the Regents through KACCT.
First was myself and Linda Fund, also Rob Edleston from Manhattan Area Tech. As we talked
a little bit about the collaboration and coordination that
we’re trying to work on with our fellow technical colleges
and the like and how we’re working maybe more as a two-year system as compared to,
say, working as 26 separate entities. I think it’s a really
good approach to where we go. The presentation I think was
very well received by the Regents. We had an opportunity to talk a little bit about
how the community colleges are able to respond to the 2020 plan
that the Regents have put in place, and most particularly
talked about our relationship we’re building with our K-12 system, along with how we’re
interacting October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 30 with the Regents and the universities on articulation
transfer. We’ve also been, I’ve been very involved
in Topeka with actually articulation and transfer committee. We had a quality assurance meeting
yesterday, and then the full-blown committee today. I think we’re on a good path towards
an outcomes focused approach to how we deal with this
new articulation system, and while there continues to be
some pretty strong push-back from the university faculty senate presidents, we actually had
several faculty members from the universities today
say that we’re following a good path and, you know, we
need to continue on. So, those works continue to occur and won’t be easy, but I think
we should be able to meet the deadlines and timelines that we
have set by the Regents, and by actually our board, who
you’ve all encouraged me to be very, very active in ensuring that we get that articulation
system in place.
We did get some news related to the Dodge City lawsuit, and the judge has remanded that
back to the Regents now for implementation of the
new funding formula. The bad news on that is it looks like
we’re going to be implementing it for this year as compared to last, I’m sorry as compared
to say next year, so, there will be some damages if you
will, that come as a result of a change in the funding. We’ll
probably see some adjustments to our budget. We’ll see where that, how that proceeds.
Fred Logan was assigned today by the Regents to be the Regents’
mediator as the three institutions negotiate with the
Regents and the other five or six, I guess, six entities. So we’ll see where that one
takes us. I’m sure that story’s not over yet, but there was quite
a bit of conversation. We are pushing to have all of the KACCT
institutions join in the pain, if you will, rather than just being the institutions that
have been involved with post-secondary ed. Beyond that, I look
forward to going to Independence with Dr. Cook, and if any
of you are interested in joining us down there, the invitation always stands.
>> Chairman Weiss: What are the dates on that? >> Trustee Cook: Four and five, December 4,
5. >> Chairman Weiss: OK. All right, thank you.
Dr. Cook, anything else that you’d like to add to that?
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 31
>> Trustee Cook: No thank you. >> Chairman Weiss: All right. I’m not sure
that we have a Johnson County Research Triangle report
today. >> Dr. Calaway: Actually, as you know, Trustee
Stewart is under the weather this evening and so he
just asked me to share that there will be a meeting next week for the Triangle and we’ll
be, actually I think Dr. Sopcich’s going to attend that
for us, and he’ll be bringing forward a report. They are not
meeting monthly now, so that will be our first meeting in a while. So we’ll have a report
for you at the November meeting.
>> Chairman Weiss: All right, thank you. And the Collegial Steering Committee did not meet
today and so I have no report on that, so that moves
us to the Faculty Association with Mr. Anderson. >> Dr. Calaway: Mr. Chairman, maybe as Jeff
moves to the podium, I might just say that we did
identify, I guess late today, or maybe it was early this morning and late last evening,
that there are some issues that we’ll want to have some discussion
on related to Collegial Steering and so we’re emailing
back and forth. Obviously there wasn’t a meeting today, but as we start to begin our
conversations around negotiations, we’ll have a meeting.
Probably in between now and the next board meeting, to start
to help us have some discussion around I think the interest-based approach, so. We look forward
to Jeff’s report. Thank you.
>> Chairman Weiss: Thank you, sir. >> Jeff Anderson: Good evening. I had about
a little over an hour to kind of think of what I wanted
to say here tonight. I’ve been kind of collecting my thoughts as I’ve been in the audience
tonight, but this job that I serve in as president of the
Faculty Association is a very difficult job, and probably no
more difficult than it was today. In this role I have to be, you know, diplomatic. I
have to be confrontive, I have to be forgiving, I have to be stern,
have to be a mediator, I have to be collaborative, and I work
with two groups that at times are diametrically opposed on issues, and trying to find a way
to make it all October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 32 work together. I also see sides of the college
that are pretty unsightly, and there’s times I wish that I
didn’t, that I wasn’t exposed to that, but it’s part of the job, and it’s part
of the institution. It’s part of every institution – it’s not unique to
us or anything. Today I saw a side of the college that I wish I hadn’t
seen. And for the past three months I’ve been working with a faculty member in an advocacy
role. My job as Faculty Association president is to
advocate for faculty. I was working that advocacy role for a
faculty member for the past three months regarding a personnel matter. The faculty member and
myself received some feedback today on the conclusion
of that matter, and tonight I’m standing before you
probably feeling as demoralized as I’ve been in probably 23 years working here. And
I think the faculty member that I’m talking about here is feeling
worse than I am, certainly. And so I’m feeling a need to
probably reach out to her tomorrow, to see how she’s doing, but I’m sure I can’t
go into the details tonight with you about what this is about,
but if you’d like to give me a phone call, I’d be happy to talk
to you personally about this, to share my side of the story as it was presented to me,
and I would welcome that conversation. That’s all I
have to say tonight. >> Chairman Weiss: Does anyone have any comments
or questions of Mr. Anderson? Jeff, thank you for the hard work you do.
>> Jeff Anderson: Right. >> Chairman Weiss: All right, I’d like to
take this opportunity to introduce our new Student Senate
report person today, Gina Galanou, so welcome to the board.
>> Gina Galanou: Thank you for having me. My name is Gina Galanou for those of you that
don’t know. I’m the new Student Senate president.
Before I move into updating you with the senate, I would
like to say a little bit about myself since this is my first meeting. I am originally
from Greece, and I’m an international student here at JCCC. I have
been here for, this is my second year, and was involved with
senate last year as well. And I am really excited to be here. I’m hoping to major
in psychology and maybe pharmacy, maybe a double major. I am
very involved with this school and I love to engage with
October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting, Page 33
students and help them. This is one of the many reasons I joined the senate. So now I
would like to update you a little bit on their latest accomplishments
with the Student Senate. To begin with, we are
very happy to have finally our full executive board. It took us a few weeks, but we have
very motivated and bright individuals, so we hope we’ll
have a great year. We’re also working on filling our two senator
positions left. And we have already started working on some projects. Our first service
project for October will be, we are trying to create like
last year, a safe environment for kids to trick-or-treat, so we
are inviting children from TLC, we are inviting students from the CLEAR program here at JCCC,
as well as relatives of students and faculty
and staff, or even the community. And it’s taking place on
October 28, from 5:30-7:00, and everyone is invited. That’s p.m., of course.
At the same time that we are working on this project, we are also collaborating with the
JCCC Food Pantry. We’re trying to encourage students
to both donate cans and also use them if they need. This
service project in October will be an opportunity for us to collect maybe a little bit more
food and get the word out there to students that are in need.
We have been engaging in fundraisers and we’re happy to
see that this year, clubs and organizations are very active. We are having a great…clubs
and organizations have a lot more members than
they did last year, and they are very, very active. The
Student Senate has funded more than five trips and events for clubs already and we have more
to come and are hoping to help them.
There was a request from students to have credit card machines on all vending machines
and we did investigate that and saw there was a place
to order, but along with that we decided it would be a good
idea to see if we could look into providing more healthy options and maybe cost-effective
for students in vending machines rather than just the cafeteria.
So we’re always ready for new ideas and we’re
constantly asking students to provide input. We do have some suggestion boxes and they’re
always welcome to email us. We have set up a new
page for them to reach out to us. And of course we’re
always open to ideas from any other member of JCCC for us. We thank you for your help
and October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 34 cooperation, and I really thank you for having
me here today. I look forward to speaking with you and
updating you in the next meeting. So if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer
them. >> Chairman Weiss: Any questions?
>> Gina Galanou: Any questions? >> Trustee Cook: Chair Weiss?
>> Chairman Weiss: Yes. >> Trustee Cook: Just to comment, I had the
privilege of dining with Gina the other evening when
we had the dedication of the Olathe Health Center and with a couple of other students,
and it was really refreshing to hear her spirit and enthusiasm
and, if I can share, you were not looking forward to the day
when you needed to leave Johnson County Community College because you really enjoyed it here
and shared some very personal experiences about
helping students, and it was really a pleasure for me to be
with you that night, and I wish you the best this year as president.
>> Gina Galanou: Thank you, it was a pleasure as well.
>> Chairman Weiss: And you are standing at the end of the line of all very impressive
Student Senate presidents that have come before the
board in the 4½ years that I’ve served on the board. And so
I’m very excited to get to know you and I’m sure that we’re going to hear great
reports from you and great things about you over the next year,
so welcome to the… >> Gina Galanou: Thank you, I really hope
to make you proud, too. Thank you. >> Chairman Weiss: I’m sure you will, thank
you. That moves us to our second petitions and
communications agenda item on the board tonight. This section of the board agenda is the time
for members of the community to provide comments
to the board. Comments are limited to five minutes
unless a significant number of people plan on speaking. In that instance the Chair may
limit a person’s comments to less than five minutes. Presenters
may choose to speak at the first or second petitions
section, but not both. And prior to beginning your comments, we ask that you state your
name, your October 20, 2011 Board of Trustees Meeting,
Page 35 address, city and state, and do we have anyone
that would like to address the board at this time? All
right, and seeing none, I will close the second petitions and communications section, and
that moves us to our final item on the board agenda for
this evening, and that’s the consent agenda. Those are typically
items of a routine nature that we consider in one motion, and do we have any items on
the consent agenda that any board member would like to
pull or consider differently, separately? All right, seeing
none, I’m open to a motion to approve the consent agenda.
>> Trustee Rayl: So moved. >> Chairman Weiss: OK.
>> Trustee Drummond: Second. >> Chairman Weiss: We have a motion and a
second, any discussion? All those in favor, please
signify by saying aye. >> All: Aye.
>> Chairman Weiss: Any opposed? Consent agenda passes. And with that, unless we have anything
else to consider for the board tonight, we are adjourned.