Board Report - April, 2005

Report from Lane Community College President Mary Spilde
To the Lane Community College Board of Education at its April 13, 2005 meeting

As we will discuss later under budget development, we are making some progress in translating the five "unknowns" in the budget into "knowns."

We now know our PERS rate and it is slightly less than what we projected. We also now know our health insurance rates for 2005-06. At a little over 4 percent, this is a remarkable improvement. Since the trend line was about 10 percent and that is what we included in the first projection, this improves our financial position. We know that the PERS Supreme Court decision does not affect us for the next two years, although we will ask for some direction later about the impact of PERS increases on our reserves. We still do not know the exact amount we will receive from the legislature. As you probably read, the co-chairs could not reach an agreement and so both the house and senate leadership came out with a budget. This put us at $426 and $422 million. However that included the budget for the state office so that is why you see our latest projection at $415 million. We believe that figure will improve, but it is the latest public information we have. The funding formula is getting closer but is not finalized. I will attend a meeting tomorrow where the rule will be discussed. So we know three of the five unknowns!

At last our enrollment seems to have turned the corner. Enrollment for winter term was up ever so slightly - about 23 FTE. That's not a large figure but we think that we have turned the corner and that our efforts to increase enrollment are beginning to pay off.

Later in the meeting you have a consent agenda item that I wanted to mention briefly. You already approved the use of the investment dollars for the Health Clinic remodel design process a couple of meetings ago. However, the costs are coming in beyond what I have authority to approve so we wanted to bring this back to clearly be within college policy. The Health Clinic is slated to move to the lower floor of Building 18 (now occupied by the woodshop and construction technology programs. Tim Craig and Jeff Davis are still looking for a location for the woodshop. Construction tech will move to Building 12 where RV tech used to be located). Art and Applied Design will move its wood and metal studio to part of the old RV tech area. This will clear up some of the air quality issues with adjacent classrooms. The remaining RV tech area will be used for storage, which we have far too little of, especially after losing a significant amount of storage space in Building 7 when Printing/Graphics and the Laundry moved to that building. Dave Keebler, Tim Craig, Jeff Davis, and Patrick Lanning were part of the discussions leading to the relocations and all were in agreement with the moves.

Lane's nursing program is number one in the state on pass rates for licensure exams.Once again we received numerous outstanding entries for this year's local League for Innovation Student Literary Competition. First-place winners have been forwarded to the national competition--we wish them the best of luck! National winners should be announced in early May. Students placed as follows: POETRY-First: Lara Coley, "Living Spaces."

PERSONAL ESSAY-First: Morgan Sky, "Ironplow: A Lesson Toward Hope." ONE-ACT PLAY-First: Frederick Griswold, "Feels So Good."

SHORT STORY-First: M. E. Hardinger, "Gone to the Funeral."

In recognition of the value of small businesses to the state's economy, Governor Kulongoski has proclaimed Wednesday, April 13, as Small Business Day in Oregon . Today, our Business Development Center staff, Oregon Small Business Development Center Network office staff, and small business owners from across the state who have been helped by the BDCs, were at the state capitol talking to legislators.

We have been reviewing our travel procedures. A few years ago the board directed us to look at having one travel agent, which we did. The main reasons for using one agent was to lower costs, to free up staff, and to provide a mechanism for reporting. As we assessed this decision, we have found that it does not free up staff and frequently we can find lower prices on the web. It does provide an easy method of reviewing flight expenses. It has been recommended that we cease requiring staff to use one travel agent as of July 1. We will be looking at increasing use of the P-card, and we are developing training to assure that we can still obtain accurate reports from our own system.

Stan Barker will lead a group of staff to develop best practices around travel.

The Lane Community College Foundation 2003 Annual Report won the national Paragon Award presented by the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations at its annual conference. NCMPR is an affiliate of the American Association of Community Colleges. Articles were written by Foundation staff Lori Steger and Janet Anderson and edited from press releases written by Joan Aschim from Marketing and Public Relations. Graphic designer Katherine Getta owns her own business and is a graduate of Lane's graphic design and small business development programs. Most of the photos were taken by Dan Welton, a Lane faculty member who teaches photography. Finally, the report was printed by QSL Printing, whose owner - Pete Gribskov - is a distinguished alumni of Lane Community College.

Clive Wanstall, chef instructor in the culinary arts program, has achieved Certified Executive Chef recognition from the American Culinary Federation. He is the second chef at Lane to receive CEC certification, following Food Services Coordinator Greg Winslow, who was certified last spring.

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