Board Report - July, 2005

Report from Lane Community College President Mary Spilde
To the Lane Community College Board of Education
July 13, 2005

Spilde introduced Alex Cuyler, recycling analyst for the City of Eugene and President of the Association of Oregon Recyclers who presented the Recycler of the Year Award to the college. Spilde acknowledged that it takes every single person at the college to make this possible, and she especially thanked Mike Simms, Jennifer Hayward, Rick Venturi and his staff and students who make this happen on a daily basis, as well as Marie for her leadership on sustainability issues.

The president reported spending most of Monday in Salem and was glad that Susie Johnston also attended. They heard a presentation by James Sager, the Governor’s education advisor, regarding the governor’s new proposal and an update about the status of budget negotiations in the legislature. The House passed out a budget of $434 million through the formula with no capital. The Senate passed out a budget of $424 through the formula and is supportive of capital. It seems the community college budget is being caught in the crossfire between the House and Senate. The House is not happy with us because they think we sold them out and agreed to a lower number from the Senate. This is not the case. It looks right now that the Senate democrats and the Governor are our best allies. How quickly things change! The Governor is supporting capital and has removed his opposition to increasing the Senate number. Also, we are hearing the Senate is trying to increase our number. We met with most of our legislators and tried to impress upon them the need for a higher number and capital construction projects.

The Governor’s proposal would take effect in the 07-09 biennium. It is built upon three principles and will reverse the disinvestment in post-secondary education and workforce-training, provide stability and predictability for P-12, and ensure educational opportunities are available throughout every stage of an Oregonian’s life.

• Predictability: Creates a floor of 61 percent of General Fund Revenues for education spending (rather than a 51 percent of Personal Income Tax Revenues cap) and appropriates, each biennium, at least 110 percent of the previous biennium’s appropriation to education.
• Stability: Provides that the excess between the 61 percent of revenues and the 110 percent appropriation be divided in thirds, allocating 2/3 to the Education Stability Fund for use as a rainy day fund for the entire education system during economic downturns when revenues don’t earn the 10 percent.
• Investment: Provides that the excess between the 61 percent of revenues and the 110 percent appropriation is divided in thirds, allocating 1/3 to the Education Opportunity and Innovation Fund, which includes the entire education enterprise, and the Joint Boards of Education will be charged with apportioning the funds. The PK-12 portion is called the Successful Schools Fund. The post-secondary education portion of the Fund is called the Post-Secondary Academic and Workforce Investment Fund.

Other components of the Governor’s plan include:

• Dedicating revenues from both the Personal Income Tax and the Corporate Income Tax, as opposed to Personal Income Tax Revenues only.
• Capping resident tuition increases at Oregon universities and community colleges at no more than the annual increase in the Oregon Median Family Income (MFI).
• Increasing the cap on the Education Stability Fund from 5 percent of General Fund Revenues to 10 percent of General Fund Revenues, which will provide revenues to fully fund one biennium of zero growth. (The referral – SJR 2 – was pre-session filed by Sen. Schrader and passed the Senate 26-3. It also passed out of House Revenue with a "do pass" and is currently in House State and Federal Affairs.)
• Including provisions of SB 639-A, which pools insurance for education workers throughout Oregon, and provisions of SB 765-A, which consolidates educational service districts in Oregon.
• Including a two-year "Portland Fix" to allow Portland Public Schools to continue to keep a portion of property tax revenues (as they currently do). This would allow Portland citizens to vote on a local option in a general election.

Spilde is generally supportive of this plan because it does offer some predictability and stability. There is a lot of talk about the fact that it is very late in the session but it is a fairly straightforward plan. Regardless of whether this gets traction this session, the Governor plans to build his next budget on this plan. It will be important for us to get the best number this session because that will affect what we get next time.

The Governor will be on campus next Tuesday to talk about his plan.

The president thanked Marie for holding down the fort while she was gone. Sonya was out of town, Donna also had to leave and then Patrick had a ruptured appendix and is still recovering, so it was a busy time for those left standing!

We are now a member of the Orbis Cascade Alliance. This is a library consortium serving private and public colleges and universities in Washington and Oregon. It will mean that our students will have access to the library materials from all the members. We believe this will be a real benefit to students as well as helping the college meet accreditation requirements.

Again this year we have two students, Renee Dickson and Sheri Sumantri who received the Coca Cola Scholarship.

I have been appointed for a three-year term to the AACC Commission on Economic and Workforce Development by the chair of AACC. The meetings coincide with meetings I was already attending so it won’t take me off campus any additional time.

Larry Romine, Lane Board of Education member and former director of public relations at Lane from 1966-92, has published an article in the summer 2005 issue of the Lane County Historian. "Robert Hamill: LCC's Forgotten President, 1968-69" remembers Hamill, who was appointed when founding President Dale Parnell left to become state superintendent of education.

Finally, I have had informal conversations with you about how we position ourselves for the future development of this area. We have found in talking to the County and others that it is unlikely that this area will be developed in the near future, and they are clear that we would be a critical partner in discussions about the development of the area, so I am recommending that we do nothing at this point but continue to pay attention to how this might unfold.