Pre-meeting documents:

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

As you might remember, our last meeting had to be moved to the Rocklin campus due to weather. It looks like the weather is good for next week, so we’re back in Tahoe-Truckee for this next meeting on Tuesday, November 10 at 2:00PM.

On the agenda: the finalization of the 2008-09 budget, a discussion about our academic enrichment program for young students, a discussion about dealing with e-mail communication between the public and the board as a group (we want to ensure compliance with the Brown Act at all times), and ratifying the agreements to establish a partnership with Rocklin Police Department for an armed law enforcement presence at the Rocklin campus.

Question of the Month: Are you a Sierra College student or alumni? If so, what did you like best about your experience, and what is the most important thing we need to improve?

Due to the strong chance for snow over Donner summit, the President’s Office just announced they are moving tomorrow’s board meeting to the Rocklin campus, after consultations with legal counsel. Open session will still begin at 2:00PM as planned.

If you have any questions, please contact the President’s Office at 916-660-7000.

Pre-meeting documents:

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

The focal point of this meeting will be three hours in closed session to “review and instruct our representatives in negotiations” with our employee groups.

While I can’t disclose the discussions that will happen in closed session, this is driven by the desire of our employee groups for the college to be proactive in developing plans to address the budget cuts we have to achieve by July 1, 2010. I’m confident the values I’ve expressed before — doing our best to protect our students and employees, who are critical to our mission as an institution — will be the foundation on which we all work together to figure out what to do.

In fact, it would be a lot easier if we could just have this conversation in open session, but state law governing collective bargaining and unionization require a more structured approach, so we’ll follow the law and work closely with those employee groups in our long-running “Omniparty” process.

The rest of the meeting will center on an update on accreditation and ratification of the accreditation follow-up report that goes back to the commission. Major kudos are due to Vice President of Instruction Rachel Rosenthal and her team for their incredible job in getting that done!

Ultimately, it was a budget that followed the two principles the board established back in early 2005. Those two principles were as follows:

1. Balance the budget in good economic times.
2. Maintain prudent reserves, and be cautious about reserves dropping below 8%.

Sidebar: For those who don’t remember, when I was first elected in November 2004, the college had run up three years of deficits in a row during relatively good economic times. We worked together as a team and brought the 2004-05 budget back into surplus by a mere $2,883 at the time — and built a total of $6 million in new reserves since then.

Back to comparing this budget against those principles. Clearly, these aren’t good economic times. And even after funding a $5.6 million deficit out of our reserves, our reserve levels will still be at 8.12%. So this budget fit our principles, and it received a yes vote from me, albeit on a cautionary note.

My concern with this budget, which I expressed strongly last night at the meeting, was that our institution is choosing to push most of the pain of these cuts to next year. As a result, we’ll have to get the budget back into balance next year, and closing a $5.6 million gap in a single year will be one of the most painful and challenging experiences Sierra College has ever experienced. (In fact, we’ll spend the rest of this fiscal year actually finding and preparing those cuts to begin on July 1, 2010.)

That being said, I understand the perspective of college staff. Here’s an example of why it would have been difficult to find even more cuts to implement for 2009-10.

Well after the fall semester had opened for registration, the state finalized its budget, which then was translated into a specific spending cut to Sierra College. That specific cut reduced funding by around 650 full time equivalent students, or between 1,200 and 1,800 actual students.

If the state had acted earlier, we could have opened fewer classes. So we were faced with a tough choice: use reserves to protect the seats of students who had already been promised classes, or cancel classes that students were already counting on to graduate, transfer or acquire new job skills.

Despite the fact that it would have been very challenging to find another $1 to $1.5 million in cuts this year, I think next year will be so painful, the college will look back and regret that it didn’t take more of the pain in this budget. But such was the decision.

On another note, as tough as it was to get a seat for this fall semester just starting, it will be even tougher in the coming spring semester. Our incredible staff is working very hard to shape customized solutions for students desperate for a particular class to graduate or transfer. They deserve our thanks for their hard work.

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

This is going to be a very important meeting — we have a budget to adopt for the 2009-10 fiscal year. The state has made substantial cuts to community college funding, which total about $5.6 million for Sierra College in fiscal year 2009-10.

Another point of evidence that California’s state government is all but hopeless: note that the state (a) has the ability to cut our 2008-09 budget retroactively months after the fiscal year is over, but (b) bars us from enacting most reductions that affect employees unless we notice those reductions three months before a fiscal year begins.

Frankly, I think this budget probably doesn’t make enough cuts for this year. There are cuts there, but ultimately, all the spending categories except “capital spending” are still higher than 2008-09. The institution wants to leave 95% of the pain to future years, in the hopes that it won’t happen. These folks — and they are good people — just don’t believe that this is “the new normal” and think some money will come floating down from that pot at the end of the rainbow next year. Nice thought, but not grounded in reality.

So this budget will open a $5.6 million structural deficit. It will be very tough to close this deficit in 2010-11 and 2011-12, but we will have to. Unlike the federal government, we can’t print money, and unlike the state, we can’t just borrow it.

Ultimately, I do expect to vote for this budget. It leaves us with reserves still within our current reserve policy of 8% to 12%. And the reserves we are using to fund the deficit spending were set aside for a rainy day (although I’d argue this is more of a fiscal hurricane).

Spreading the pain out would be easier for students and employees, but I understand how hard it is to face that fact. I’m going to listen to the arguments and make my decision at the meeting.

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

The primary focus of this meeting is the evaluation of our CEO. I’ve probably written enough on this blog for you to know that I think the world of Leo Chavez and what he’s accomplishing at Sierra College. These evaluations are the board’s opportunity to check in with him on how he’s executing on the strategic plan and the goals we’ve set as an institution.

In open session, we’ll get updates on the upcoming accreditation review, facilities planning issues, and the budget. I expect few decisions on the budget as staff is still defining how we’re going to cut between $6 and $8 million out of our $100 million budget this year. (They’ll propose a budget for adoption in September.)

Cutting 6% to 8% out of your budget is not easy to do when you’re running as lean as we are, and have huge demand for student growth from the newly unemployed seeking upgraded job skills. Thank heavens that we have the reserves that we’ve built up for the last four years for just this kind of problem.

Our reserves are there to protect our students and our employees. Without those two sets of people on campus, we can’t fulfill our mission. The key question facing the board is: how much protection do we want to have for our students and employees?

If we use all of our spendable reserves to make this year “easy” (relative term), we’ll have zero means to protect students and employees when the cuts come next year — and come they will. Revenues are still declining and the state “solved” several billion dollars of the problem by simply throwing the expenditures into next year. I can’t find a single economist who thinks state revenue will climb next year.

I’m not firmly attached to any particular dollar number of how much in reserves we should use this year (other than the simple fact that we clearly should be mitigating some cuts with the reserves…this is precisely what they’re for).

To make that decision, I’ll literally do some simulations in a spreadsheet to see how good or bad things might be in 2, 3 and 4 years, try to develop a sense of the most likely outcome, and see how it looks to spread the reserves out over those years.

That’s the tough decision facing this board. Each of us will have our own approach to deciding what we can live with. We’re charged with safeguarding — holding in trust — this institution, and I think all seven of us take that very seriously. I hope you’ll take the time to share your input with us — via e-mail, Twitter, a letter or postcard, a fax, or even showing up at this meeting.

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

You may notice that this meeting is on a Saturday — this is the second of two board retreats this year. There will be a lot of discussions about facilities, and a lot of discussions about the budget situation that awaits us in this fiscal year.

That being said, since this is a retreat, don’t expect any tweets during the meeting. Our regular meetings are designed around getting public input into decision making. Our retreats are all about assessing all of the input we’ve received, assessing data and information from staff, and thinking big picture about the big decisions we need to make as a board.

The state budget outlook is beginning to get clearer. I’m hoping to blog a bit more next week about where things stand, and my initial thoughts on what we need to do to protect students and employees while riding out the storm.

On the budget, we were dealing with a difficult situation. We’re in completely uncharted waters with the economic and state tax revenue situations, so it is impossible to decide exactly how much to cut, and how much to draw down our reserves.

As the meeting progressed, I was quite sure I was going to be voting against the budget, which laid out an opening blueprint with a $2.3 million deficit.

I’m going to write a more expansive blog post about the budget issue, but suffice it to say that our reserves exist to protect our most valuable asset: our faculty and staff. If we agree that it’s acceptable to take reserves down to 6%, a drawdown of $2.3 million would utilize roughly 58% of our ability to outlast this “great recession.”

As it turned out, Trustee Martin proposed not setting a specific reserves vs. cuts target in the absence of solid revenue projections from the state, and I was glad to join my board colleagues in a unanimous vote asking staff to begin preparing a budget blueprint with a mix of spending cuts and reserve draw.

When the revenue picture comes into focus in July, we’ll return to the task of adopting a budget with a specific target for spending cuts and reserve drawdown.

No matter how you slice it, the pain of these cuts will be felt very deeply by our students, faculty and staff. The key is finding the right balance so we don’t end up being forced in year two or three to make much deeper cuts to course sections and employees than we would have had to if we had planned ahead.

Meeting documents:

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

Here’s the Twitter feed from the meeting. Starting next meeting, I’m going to change the hashtag to #scmtg to create more space, but we used #sierracollege for this one.

• 3:33 PM — Sierra College board meeting starts at 4pm. You can “attend on Twitter” at #sierracollege. We need your input!
• 4:05 PM — And the meeting begins. Packed house. #sierracollege
• 4:08 PM — http://twitpic.com/708tn – Swearing in our new student trustee, Chris Randleman #sierracollege
• 4:23 PM — 08-09 budget revision passed, on to the 09-10 budget. Tough choices. #sierracollege
• 4:25 PM — 09-10 revenues projected to drop by $5m from $97m 08-09 budget. Never happened before. #sierracollege
• 4:44 PM — Discussion on whether this is a 2 year or 3 year economic problem? I think it could be 3-4. #sierracollege
• 4:45 PM — @ErikaMackay I agree aaron!!! RT @aaronklein Discussion on whether this is a 2 year or 3 year economic problem? I think it could be 3-4. #sierracollege
• 5:07 PM — Just delivered my perspective on reserves. Drawing down 22% of our reserves in one year is too much even in these times. #sierracollege
• 5:08 PM — My perspective on the economy: it may be “welcome to the new normal.” #sierracollege
• 5:18 PM — Trustee Leslie talking about the outlook in Sac with the state legislature. #sierracollege
• 5:20 PM — Trustee Reynoso just pitched electing a different Gov. Thinks new taxes are the solution. Hmm, thought we tried that. #sierracollege
• 5:41 PM — [Appropriately] Passionate speech from Athletics Director on the legislative proposal to cut athletics. #sierracollege
• 6:07 PM —Board passes motion directing staff to develop a budget based on cuts and drawdown of reserves, 7-0. #sierracollege
• 6:38 PM — http://twitpic.com/70lo4 – Receiving a commendation from the LtGov for underrepresented student success programs
• 8:11 PM —Overall, good board meeting. Glad faculty and staff were there to input. Many tough choices ahead at #sierracollege.

So interestingly enough, a Sierra College staff member didn’t like reaching out for community input via Twitter…

• @aaronklein why are you twittering from the board meeting? you are being paid to sit there and participate in the meeting and not twiting!!

My reply:

• @kg6pir My role is to bring community input in, and we need it on critical issues like budget. Happy to facilitate that w/min twittering.
• @kg6pir and if you think I’m not participating, you’re obviously not here LOL. Others prob want me to shut up.

And another Sierra College staff member (@lindyatoms) replied:

• @kg6pir Well maybe the board member is letting the public know what is going on at the meeting in case we’re not there.

Meanwhile, the person who runs @sierracollege was excited about getting a Twitter feed of the meeting:

• Get live tweets from Board of Trustees meeting going on right now by following @aaronklein. A trustee who gets social media. Yay!
• Trustee @aaronklein is on Twitter and wants your input about the budget issues. Follow him for real-time info. #sierracollege

…and I replied:

• Thanks again for spreading the word, @SierraCollege. Had some good questions and input! Twitter is great for helping people engage w/govt.

Here are some of those questions (Q) and answers (A):

• Q @quizwedge: How much of a drawdown of reserves was approved? #sierracollege
• A @quizwedge: Didn’t. Compromise motion to develop a budget with a mix of cuts and reserves. No target number adopted. #sierracollege
• Q @lgoddard: Has SC had to cut summer classes like many CSU schools? If so, how do you handle those who have already made plans?
• A @lgoddard: Sierra did cut 31 sections for this summer. It was well in advance, so students had as much time as poss to adjust.
• A @lgoddard The problem is, we had already served 650 students above our funding cap so we were already way over. Had no choice with summer.
• Q @lgoddard Ouch. That makes for a tough decision. Has your enrollment slipped for next year? Any incentives offered to attract students?
• A @lgoddard No, we have way more students than we have funding, so that’s not a problem. Hard to say what happens tho if they 3x fees.

Rest assured, Job #1 will remain discussion with my colleagues and casting votes during the meeting. But I’m glad that I can do some minimal twittering to bring more community input to the table. Communicating with the public is one of the central roles of a trustee, after all.

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants

This meeting can be summed up in one word: BUDGET. If you aren’t aware of the state budget crisis and the incredible effects it will have on our local governments, please read a newspaper, and then come to the meeting and add your voice to the mix.

We have a series of very tough decisions to make, if we’re going to keep Sierra College on the right track in the midst of this fiscal hurricane. Your input is crucial, so I really hope you’ll make the effort to come.

We did have the redistricting issue come up, which was the subject of a blog post earlier. I had made the decision to oppose it, because I think our district has a huge advantage by not being balkanized between different districts, but coming at problems with unified interests and accountability. For lack of another motion, I moved to table the issue, and the motion to table passed 4-3 (Leslie, Palmer, Vineyard and Klein).

Meeting documents:

• Meeting Agenda
• Contracts (General / Capital Projects)
• Warrants
• Survey Results from 2009 President’s Breakfast
• Strategic Planning: Resource Allocation Process

Here’s the Twitter feed from the meeting. You can follow this during future meetings by searching “#sierracollege” at search.twitter.com.

• 2:35 PM — Closed session starting. Tweet on the other side. #sierracollege
• 4:56 PM — Hasn’t been a good meeting to Twitter. Lots happening. Took action on student expulsion for issue of violence, I voted yes. #sierracollege
• 4:57 PM — Adopted 09-10 board goals. Redistricting proposal failed 4-3, I voted to table. #sierracollege
• 4:57 PM — Now doing planning update on NCC facilities expansion. #sierracollege
• 5:01 PM — Saying thank you to Neal Allbee, retiring as NCC Exec Dean. His replacement, Stephanie Ortiz, is great. Congrats Neal. #sierracollege
• 5:23 PM — Speeding through the agenda. I reported on our Facilities Cmte meeting. At trustee reports now. #sierracollege
• 5:25 PM — Stephanie’s replacement as Dean of BizTech is Luis Sanchez, another great guy. #sierracollege
• 5:30 PM — Saying goodbye to student trustee Zach Rutledge…a great guy. New guy is Chris Randleman, excited to meet him. #sierracollege
• 5:35 PM — Just delivered my report about the trustee’s conference and commencement. #sierracollege
• 6:24 PM — Back from a break. Getting a briefing on the new strategic planning and resource allocation process. #sierracollege
• 9:16 PM — Forgot to wrap up. Great meeting. I’m so proud of our incredible exec team. Leo, Rachel, Doug, Mandy and Ron are the best. #sierracollege
• 9:19 PM — Next time, I hope one of you will twitter a question or idea my way. Glad to share your input with the board. #sierracollege