Board Report – December 2008

Report from Lane Community College President Mary Spilde
To the Lane Community College Board of Education
December 3, 2008

On the budget front, things are not good. You have heard about the state revenue shortfall for the current year of $160 million announced on the revenue forecast on November 19. The governor announced a 1.2 percent across-the-board cut to biennial budgets. For Lane that is about $740,000. We are monitoring our financial results very closely; we are constraining spending; we have some additional revenue because of the enrollment increase; we have an ending fund balance. Given all of these factors, I am not recommending that we make any reductions for this year at this time. This gives us a little breathing room, but not much.

The governor's budget was announced this week with dreadful consequences for community colleges. Of course, due to the state of the economy, we expected that it would not be the 10 percent increase the governor had promised. However, we did not anticipate the disparate treatment we received compared with the other sectors of education. K-12 received a 2.4 percent increase; OUS received a 5 percent increase; community colleges received a 3 percent decrease, which amounts to $15 million. This is inexplicable. Real cuts to community colleges at a time when we are needed more than ever to train people for jobs that are more recession proof is unconscionable. Let me be clear: we recognize the challenges facing the state budget, but we cannot help but notice how inequitably community colleges have been treated. If you think there is a deja vu here, you are right. You will recall the 2005 session when the governor's office rolled out a budget that was a decrease. After we brought this to their attention, the Essential Budget Level (EBL) process for community colleges, which is flawed, was blamed. We spent the entire session digging ourselves out of that hole. Last session Senator Devlin introduced a bill to fix the EBL for community colleges. The governor said he would fix it through Executive Order. This did not happen. While he authored an Executive Order to complete the work by December 1, he has not held his agency accountable for completing the work. Community colleges submitted all the data in August, and it was forwarded to the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) in October. We will be working to have DAS complete the work.

We have a long, hard legislative session before us. I am very pleased to announce that Brett Rowlett has been hired as our new Director of Governmental and Community Relations. You may remember Brett from when he was Lane's campus organizer for the Oregon Student Association. Since then he has worked at the University of Oregon and the Oregon Student Assistance Commission. We are very glad to have Brett on board. Already, he has worked with Oregon Community College Association (OCCA) and DAS on the EBL issues; we have sent letters to our local legislative delegation, and Brett will be contacting them in the next couple of days before their caucus meeting this weekend. More on the budget process later in the agenda.

I held an all staff meeting this afternoon to share budget information with the staff, and everything will be posted on the web in the next couple of days.

It has been a very busy term. We are very pleased with our 13.4 percent increase in enrollment. Mostly to do with the economy and increases in student aid, but our strategic enrollment management is also playing a part. The state was up overall by 10.5 percent, so we are just ahead of the curve. It is too early to say if we will maintain this relatively good position as the year goes on. However, there are discussions going on that may affect the funding distribution formula such as growth and small school base.

I had a productive set of meetings with the League for Innovation board, attending the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education, and the American Association of Community Colleges board meeting last month. I was able to connect with the Kresge Foundation and rekindle our request for funding for the Health and Wellness building. I also met with the National Science Foundation, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education about grant opportunities. It appears that their goals align very well with Lane's because the focus will be on green technology and sustainability for many of their grant awards.

Kate Barry received the Tenison Haley Outstanding Individual Contribution Award at the 2008 Oregon Diversity Institute in November. Tenison was an outstanding advocate for diversity issues from Rogue Community College, and it is indeed an honor for Kate to be recognized for her tireless efforts on behalf of under-represented individuals and groups.

You may have noticed that we are now in the public phase of the Opening Doors campaign. After the first of the year, we will be releasing the names of some lead donors. It was very exciting yesterday when I held in my hand a check for $1.5 million for the new building. That was the first time I have held a check for that amount! We are very close to our match and expect to make it.

I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season.

Now I would like to introduce a more lengthy topic regarding our land assets. Marston Morgan has been doing some work to help us think about how these assets might be effectively used. He has introduced us to Dr. Mark Gillem from the University of Oregon School of Architecture, and we have a very interesting and exciting option to consider. I would like to ask Marston to briefly introduce the topic and then ask Mark to make a presentation.