********************************************* DISCLAIMER: THIS CART FILE WAS PRODUCED FOR COMMUNICATION ACCESS AS AN ADA ACCOMMODATION AND MAY NOT BE 100% VERBATIM. THIS IS A DRAFT FILE AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. IT IS SCAN-EDITED ONLY, AS PER CART INDUSTRY STANDARDS, AND MAY CONTAIN SOME PHONETICALLY REPRESENTED WORDS, INCORRECT SPELLINGS, TRANSMISSION ERRORS, AND STENOTYPE SYMBOLS OR NONSENSICAL WORDS. THIS IS NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT AND MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED, PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. THIS FILE SHALL NOT BE DISCLOSED IN ANY FORM (WRITTEN OR ELECTRONIC) AS A VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT OR POSTED TO ANY WEBSITE OR PUBLIC FORUM OR SHARED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE HIRING PARTY AND/OR THE CART PROVIDER. THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON FOR PURPOSES OF VERBATIM CITATION. ********************************************* May 11, 2022 Meeting of the Governing Board... >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Good evening. Welcome to the Pima Community College May 11, 2022 Governing Board meeting. I hereby call the meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. Thank you for all being here. Let's all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Dr. Dor�, can you please lead us? (Pledge of Allegiance.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Dr. Dor�. We have a full agenda again, so I would like to start by thanking all of those who continuously show resilience, patience, attention to detail, and professionalism in helping us to prepare this meeting. A special shoutout to Dan The Man and all the IT crew that are here today and our security teams. Indeed, there is a lot to be thankful for. As a board member, I was personally blessed with opportunities to observe firsthand many of our campuses and departments and the students. I also had a stirring and uplifting visit to a Sunnyside District School, the Star Academy. I met with the Sunnyside superintendent, the principal, and the chair of the Sunnyside school board. I know that our chancellor and several administrators have been there, as well, in the past. If you don't know about Star Academy, it's a school created for students who have trouble in high school and need an extra boost in meeting minimum education requirements, extra classes, and an environment that encourages learning, all efforts to prepare people for life. The positive atmosphere was absolutely palpable, indeed inspiring. So our collaboration with Sunnyside and all the school districts in Pima County is integral to the foundation of Pima and its role in this community. This is an important component of our enrollment strategy led by our provost and Dr. Dor�'s team. The board will be following through and tracking their progress through the chancellor. I would like to reiterate that recruitment and enrollment is just the tip of iceberg. It is in the tracking and retention of every student that will truly make a huge difference to this school and this community. I would also like to announce that the chancellor is not here tonight due to a family emergency, so we do have Dr. Dor� here sitting in for the chancellor. Thank you so much for doing that. I'd also like to send out big kudos, shoutout to the culinary arts and hospitality departments for their amazing efforts in making the Chef Jeff event happening. It was truly an honor to be there and watch with amazement what our students were doing. The most moving part was when we conferred Pima's first-ever honorary degree to Chef Jeff. Let's look at that moment, if we can. (Video begins.) >> This is a very humble moment right here for me. It took me three years to earn my high school diploma, and I always feared going to college because I never felt that I was smart enough. So to receive this honorary culinary degree is huge for me. I wish my family could have been here. I never have been to culinary school. I have never taken a cooking class. I learn from putting in the hard work. So I want to thank all of you, this college, this community, all the chefs and the students here. This will not be my last time here to Tucson. (Applause.) >> This definitely will not be my last time here. Thank you so much. This is huge. This is big for me. Thank you so much. (Applause.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thanks so much for cuing that up. I wanted to share that with a lot of you that did not have the chance to attend. It was extremely moving to be there in person to see Chef Jeff that emotional about this honorary degree. That single moment is precisely what we cherish the most at Pima Community College, moments like those, to see someone who never dreamed of being in a position of receiving a GED or a certificate or a two-year degree and maybe even a shot at a Bachelor's degree and beyond. To see them light up when it becomes a reality is something truly amazing, and it was an honor to see that happen. It's why we, all of us, do what we do here at Pima Community College. Thank you to everyone who made that event happen. There was so much else happening at all of our campuses this past month. I mean, baseball, soccer, track and field, our stunning arts and fashion department exhibits, they are still happening, beautiful musical recitals, an open house for our Aviation Center of Excellence students, and so, so much more that I cannot possibly list here. Academically, students are, as we speak, myself included, preparing for finals and graduation. We all look forward to attending the Kino event donned in our regalia. We will see you there. Tomorrow evening, I will also be attending the veterans' graduation ceremony. Turning to today's agenda, I'm deeply concerned by an agenda item we will be discussing with respect to the findings of Arizona Attorney General's Office that members of the board have violated Arizona Open Meeting Laws. Additionally, as a self-governing elected board, it is our responsibility to uphold the law and our oath of office. These actions undermine the public's trust, violates our fiduciary responsibilities, and erodes the integrity of this institution putting our accreditation at risk. We will hear more from the outside counsel on this, and I look forward to meaningful dialogue to help ensure we are meeting our responsibilities as a board. We have had several training sessions on board responsibilities and roles, and we will continue to hold these trainings in the future and so much more. The stability, mission, and success of this college is our fundamental responsibility. We are obligated to that end to be accountable and professional to those who elected us. Most of all, we must work together as a team, support one another, and always seek what's best for the college. Thank you for all being here and most of all for caring so much about Pima Community College. I'd like to turn now to Mr. Silvyn who will introduce the outside general counsel to speak more to those attorney general findings. Mr. Silvyn? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one point of order, a piece of business that we hadn't taken care of yet. That's the roll call. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Please go ahead with the roll call. Thank you. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Here. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Here. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Dr. Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Here. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mr. Clinco? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Here. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Ms. Ripley? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Here. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: All board members are present. Thank you for indulging me with that digression. We have with us this evening Susan Segal. She's a very experienced attorney. She's a member of a firm called Gust Rosenfeld that does significant amount of work for different public entities in Arizona. I'm not going to go into detail about her background, but I just wanted to mention some particularly relevant information about her background and that is that she served in the Office of the Arizona Attorney General for 10 years. During that time, she was a section chief in the education and health section, and more importantly for our discussion this evening, she was part of the Arizona Attorney General Open Meeting Law enforcement team. She was also part of the Arizona Attorney General opinion review committee, and in fact is the author of the 2005 opinion about the Open Meeting Law and electronic communications that's cited in the letter that's included with the board materials this evening. With that as a little bit of background, I would ask Ms. Segal to share the information with us. >> SUSAN SEGAL: Good evening, board members, Madam Chair. This is Susan Segal. I apologize in advance for my voice. Seems that I have something that wants to cling to me, but I'm on at least I think the end of this run. I am going to read portions, most of the letter of April 14, 2022, issued by the Office of the Arizona Attorney General. Dear Board Members and Ms. Segal. As you know, the Office of the Attorney General received a self-reported complaint alleging that the Pima County Community College District Governing Board violated Arizona's Open Meeting Law. The office has concluded its review of the board's self-reported complaint and the board's responses to the office's request for additional information. As discussed below, the office has determined Board Members Maria Garcia and Luis Gonzales violated the Open Meeting Law for two reasons. First, Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales sent multiple e-mail communications that were addressed to a quorum of the board and proposed legal action. Second, Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales individually and collectively violated the Open Meeting Law by disclosing confidential executive session information to a third party that was not authorized to receive such information pursuant to ARS Section 38-431.03(B) and (F). This disclosure of executive session information occurred in two separate instances. First, in the September 14, 2020 memorandum discussing diversity, inclusiveness, and social justice, and second, the June 21, 2021 memorandum discussing the termination of a district employee. Each of these instances disclosing executive session information constitutes an Open Meeting Law violation. I'm going to jump to the section that talks about violation for e-mail communications sent to a quorum of the board. Here, the e-mail communications went simply beyond asking for a matter to be placed on a future board agenda. Instead, the e-mail communications expressed Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales' opinions and interpretations on matters that would foreseeably come before the board for future discussion or legal action. These e-mail communications essentially invited the board to engage in a nonpublic discussion of a matter that could foreseeably come before the board for future legal action and expressed far more than simply asking the matter to be put on an agenda for discussion at a future meeting. Ultimately, the contents of the e-mail communications should have been properly noticed and added to a meeting agenda so that the board could address these matters in an open, public meeting rather than through e-mails to a quorum of the board. The board's response notes that Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales believe that the e-mail communications are permissible under ARS Section 38-431.09(B), which in relevant part permits an individual member of a public body to express an opinion or discuss an issue through technological means that may come before the public body at a future meeting so long as such discussion is not principally directed at or directly given to another member of the public body. Further, this exception does not apply where there is collective deliberation to take legal action. Here, the e-mail communications plainly do not fall within the scope of ARS Section 38-431.09(B) as they were addressed to and principally directed at a quorum of the board. Additionally, the e-mail communications consist of collective deliberations between Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales that propose the board take legal action on various matters. And then they cite to certain of the communications. This conclusion is in keeping with the legislature's directive that the Open Meeting Law be construed in favor of open and public meetings. Accordingly, Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales violated the Open Meeting Law by sending the e-mail communications to a quorum of the board. The board's response also included instances where district staff member Andrea Gauna was directed by Ms. Garcia to forward e-mail communications to other board members. By directing Ms. Gauna to forward these e-mail communications to a quorum of the board, Ms. Garcia violated the Open Meeting Law. The next is the section concerning confidential executive session information. Here, the metadata for the September 14, 2020 memorandum concerning efforts to diversify the district and the June 21, 2021 memorandum concerning the termination of a district employee both contain confidential executive session information. The board provided metadata for both the September 14, 2020 memorandum and the June 21, 2021 memorandum that shows that along with Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales, a person called Soaring Hawk also authored and/or edited both of these memoranda. As of the date of this letter, Soaring Hawk is not a current or former board member and is otherwise not one of the persons or entities authorized to receive executive session information under ARS Section 38-431.03(B). Additionally, and of greater concern, it appears from the September 14, 2020 memorandum and the June 21, 2021 memorandum that members of the press and the public at large were copied on these memoranda. As stated above, confidential executive session information may not be released to any person or entity that's not listed in ARS Section 38-431.03. Because Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales communicated and provided access to confidential executive session information to unauthorized persons, Ms. Garcia and Mr. Gonzales individually violated ARS Section 38-431.03(B) for both the September 14, 2020 memorandum and the June 21, 2021 memorandum. The last section in the letter is the remedy. To remedy this violation, the office considered the readily available records documenting whether the board has had any recent Open Meeting Law violations, the board's responses and documentation, the nature and scope of the violations found herein, and that Board Members Garcia and Gonzales did not respond to or provide affidavits addressing the questions asked in the office's March 24, 2021 inquiry letter. Having weighed these factors, and in order to resolve this matter, the office now requires that the board and relevant district staff attend an Open Meeting Law training conducted by the Arizona Ombudsman-Citizens' Aide, another preapproved organization, or a preapproved attorney within 60 days of receipt of this letter. This Open Meeting Law training should emphasize the confidential nature of executive session materials and the implications of using e-mail and other technological communications involving board business. Evidence of completion of such training shall be provided to the office to be kept on file. Additionally, the board must share the contents of this violation letter, excluding any executive session information, with the public at the next practicable public meeting. And that is tonight. Any statement read to the public regarding this matter must be preapproved by the office. The office has noted this occurrence as a violation, which will be considered in determining the response to any further Open Meeting Law violations by the board and its current members. Further, any subsequent Open Meeting Law violations by Board Members Garcia and Gonzales proposing legal action to a quorum of the board via e-mail and/or the disclosure of confidential executive session information will be considered knowing violations pursuant to ARS Section 38-431.07(A). That's the majority of the content of the letter. I left out parentheticals and footnotes in order to be expeditious in delivering the contents of this letter. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Ms. Segal, for reading those findings and in sharing them with the board at this public meeting. Mr. Silvyn, do you have any other comments? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So we have been in touch with the Office of the Arizona Ombudsman and are working on coordinating a scheduling for that training, and we will certainly make sure we are in compliance with the remedy section of the attorney general's letter. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. To be clear, we, as a board, we take all of these types of findings extremely seriously. This is a grave situation. Again, it's the duty of this board as elected officials for the responsibility, the accountability, and the professionalism of the operations and actions of the board all keeping in mind for the greater good of the college. So I promise you all that we will continue with an even more robust training program through the ombudsman and other training programs that will help us move forward as a board, especially regarding Open Meeting Law. Thank you very much for coming, Ms. Segal. >> SUSAN SEGAL: You're welcome. My pleasure. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I believe we do have questions. Mr. Clinco? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Ms. Segal, could you just explain for the general public about the executive session and why the ARS allows for confidential information and the point of it and why a disclosure is significant? >> SUSAN SEGAL: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Clinco. In all of the states that have adopted a form of the Open Meeting Law, there has been a recognition that while most, majority of communications are to be open and transparent, there are real reasons for why you have closed executive sessions. They are to allow deliberation on sensitive topics or topics that may become the subject of negotiations later on. An example is legal advice, giving direction to an attorney, giving direction to labor representatives, discussing employees, and employee status or discipline. Those types of things reflect a recognition, those exceptions reflect a recognition by the legislature that some things have to be done behind closed doors. That's why there are these exceptions in the Arizona Open Meeting Law under the executive session exceptions. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Anyone else? Yes, Board Member Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I just want to read -- (off microphone). To your friends, everything. To your enemies, the law. What I want to state is that the violations that may have occurred was because I was trying to keep this college from getting sued. Okay. This administration has violated due process on employees. That's all we were attempting to try to do. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Garcia. Any other comments or questions for Ms. Segal? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I just have a general comment. I just have to articulate frankly my outrage about the findings and the information detailed inside of it. You know, I served as the chair when this occurred, and it is deeply concerning. It's concerning because it constitutes a violation of the public trust. We, as elected officials, have a responsibility to uphold the highest ethical standard for this institution, for our community, and the disclosure of confidential information that disempowers the institution, violating the Open Meeting Law, it's unconscionable. It erodes trust in this institution. I ran for this board because this college was engulfed in issues of accountability and ethical questions of its ethical standards and practices. For the entire duration of my time on this board, I have worked tirelessly to restore the institution's integrity. I'm so proud to have sat with various members of the community who served on this board to do that. To see this, it really constitutes an undermining of all of that work, and it is just absolutely disgraceful because it's putting the institution itself at risk. It's unacceptable. I really appreciate the time. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Madam Chair, if you don't mind, could I add one thing? I was just thinking about the comment that Ms. Garcia made. If a board member has information that there is a serious problem at this college, we have a process for that information to be disclosed, as outlined in the bylaws, all of which can be done without violating the Open Meeting Law. If there is ever a question by any board member about how to disclose information about a problem or a concern at Pima so that we can look into it, and we absolutely want board members to do that, we certainly have ways for that to happen without running any risk of an Open Meeting Law violation. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Mr. Silvyn. Again, just for those of you that may not know, this Governing Board, again, we have to self-govern. We do have executive sessions that are behind closed doors. It's for that very reason that we have to maintain communications, open communications during those meetings so that we can discuss topics that could be controversial or topics that are sensitive or perhaps apply to personnel. The beauty of this board when I was elected at the time was that I thought this is one of the most diverse boards I have ever seen, at least in Pima County. And that diversity alone allows for open communication and differing thoughts, a difference in perhaps opinion and a different point of view. So this is why the executive board meetings are so important so we can hear all of those thoughts, so we can get diverse points of view. Like Mr. Silvyn stated, there are very specific processes at this college. I'm trying desperately to follow parliamentary procedure here, parliamentary procedure at these board meetings, and a lot of processes to put forth any kind of complaints. Those processes have to be followed for all of this to happen with transparency during the regular board meetings. So again, without further ado, I want to go back to the agenda but also reiterate our promise as a board to make sure that we go forward with necessary training and the seriousness of an issue such as this. Thank you. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Comment? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Before we go on, Mr. Gonzales would like to ask a question. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Just a brief comment reference to discussion. As was stated, we are aware that one of the mentioned reference to the process, letting the public know, too, is really following the bylaws, and the bylaws is one of the things to let the public know that this board is currently looking at very thoroughly and hopefully making changes for the better. Because I think those bylaws needs to be updated. I think the last time it was done was three years ago. But I think the board will come to a decision what's going to be the best reference to the outcome of the bylaws to follow clear, transparent policies, rules and regulations. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. I was just told that we need to take a short break because they are having technical difficulties with Zoom or something in this room. Please don't go away. We will be right back. (Pause in proceedings.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: We're back. Can you hear me? Check one, good? So back to the agenda. The next item is comments by the members of the board. I'm just going to basically start from left to right. Comments by the board, we'll start from left to right. Board Member Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes, good afternoon. Very little to report on, but I do want to acknowledge in reference to not only the faculty and staff in reference to the closing of the college, I guess a lot of our students are doing their finals. I know two of my grandkids are. More important, one of the things I want to emphasize is I know there is going to be a big celebration on the 18th, is that correct, for the graduation? It's going to be at the Kino Stadium. I'm pretty sure a lot of our community is going to be there, acknowledging our students. That's one of the things that we have mentioned before is that being a community but a community college reference to the people out there. I think it's going to be a great event. I invite everyone to come over and recognize and let our young people and our old people, too, recognize them for their accomplishment, but more important, being successful in succeeding in one of the many programs that we have here at Pima Community College. That's basically it for right now for this year. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Gonzales. Board Member Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I just want to read a quote, okay? I have a constituent that sent me this, so I'm going to read what it says, because I thought it was really nice. It is not the critics who count, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. Who does actually strive to do the deeds? Who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst it fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that the place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know victory nor defeat. That was by Theodore Roosevelt. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Garcia, for those remarks. Next, Board Member Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Congratulations to all the students who are graduating, and thank you to the faculty who helped them get there. Certainly to the administration as well in supporting the faculty and the staff. Have a great summer and a great graduation. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Board Member Clinco? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. Again, congratulations to all of our students on their success and their future success in our community and to all of the faculty and staff who strive and work in and out each day to achieve and help those students achieve their goals. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Clinco. I have no further remarks at this time. I just want to just reiterate that the graduation at Kino is going to be a great one. But there are several more going on tomorrow. The veterans, aviation students, I think, as well. If you can support, please come on out, don your regalia if you'd like. We will see you there. Next on the agenda is the call to the audience. First in line is Sylvia Lee. >> Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chair Ripley, Chancellor Lambert, members of the board, and guests. Can you hear me? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes. >> My name is Sylvia Lee, and I'm a native Tucsonan. My family has deep roots in this community. I'm a very proud graduate of PCC, University of Arizona, and ASU. I have had 30 years of experience in higher ed and worked at PCC as a dean and then campus president. I retired early from PCC to run for the Governing Board and started my six-year term in January 2013. At that time, PCC was in very serious trouble due to a decade of neglect by the then-chancellor and Governing Board. The accreditation body, the Higher Learning Commission, placed PCC on probation in the spring of 2013. Failure to get off probation could mean that PCC would have to close its doors. Can you imagine this community without PCC? In July 2013, Chancellor Lee Lambert was hired. Lee was hired to get the college off probation and make PCC a premier community college. The odds facing the college were insurmountable. The college had just lost all state funding. Lee and a dedicated team of administrators, faculty, staff, worked incredibly hard to get PCC off probation which happened in 2017. By the way, PCC is now a premier community college, thanks to Lee and many, many others. Now, here we are almost 10 years since being placed on probation, risking everything we have worked so hard to accomplish due to an insidious cancer that has continued to grow and fester since 2013 when Lee Lambert was hired. A small group of individuals have made it their mission to get rid of Lee and destroy the college. They would argue that they are trying to save the college. They wrote a letter to the accreditation body stating that PCC should not get off probation. When Lee and others were interviewed for the chancellor position in 2013, they gave each candidate a letter stating they should all withdraw their names from consideration because this small group wanted their own person to serve in that role so they could control the college. Almost 10 years later, this is still their end game. Fire Chancellor Lambert, hire their own person, gain control of the college's destiny. God help our college and this community if that ever happens. There are two individuals that are part of this insidious cancer, sitting on the PCC board today. These two individuals, as we heard, were found by the Attorney General's Office to have violated Open Meeting Law. This insidious cancer is spreading, and it's up to us that love PCC and our community to make sure they do not succeed. Now I say to Luis Gonzales and Maria Garcia, resign from the PCC Governing Board immediately. Do the right thing for PCC and our community. Thank you. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: And you were bought off, weren't you? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for those comments, Dr. Lee. Next on public comment registration is Sandra Wilson. Sandra Wilson, are you there? Are you there? We can hold off and skip to Calum Jeffrion (phonetic). Is there a problem, Dan? We seem to be frozen. I don't know if anyone can hear us. >> The audio is perfect. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I see people coming up. Is Sandra Wilson on the screen? I can't see. >> She was on earlier, but I don't currently see her now. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Calum? No? Makyla Hays? >> MAKYLA HAYS: Hello. Good evening, Chair Ripley, Chancellor, board members, colleagues and guests. I'm Makyla Hays. I'm math faculty, Pima Online department head, and PCCEA president. The class and comp study has been the focus topic for most of my public comments this year and today is no different. I want to start by acknowledging in several public forums, administration has assured employees that no one will be paid less next year in the new structures, and that should initial contracts for the year not be issued on the new salary schedule, that back pay will be issued for any difference at the time of new contracts. Also in the budget proposal later tonight, monies have been set aside to pay for adjustments and there has been a commitment that each person should see some sort of increase next year rather than just remaining at the same rate. We appreciate those commitments. I also want to thank Dr. Bea and the HR team for listening to faculty input and taking the faculty steering committee's suggestions seriously. Because of this, I am much more confident in the outcome of this study. Even though we don't have a finalized schedule yet, it will be a better product for it. It's very unfortunate that we do not have a final salary schedule or a policy on placement or movement to share with faculty today, as a majority of their contracts end next week. Unless we send at least some partial information out early next week, faculty beyond the steering committee will not have had any opportunity to provide feedback on this new structure and will be surprised by a new salary offered in June. PCCEA hopes that enough information can be shared before the end of contract so that faculty will have an idea of what's to come and will be comfortable with this course of action. There are so many details to work out, such as the actual salary schedule, along with objective rules and guidelines for placement and movement. There are also more conversations to be had next year like pay in hard-to-hire disciplines. Also, policy language still needs to be written surrounding all of these changes and sent out for comment following the AERC process. Faculty on the steering committee have worked hard to get feedback to the consultants at each stage of this process in a timely manner, asking clarifying questions as necessary so we can be confident in the direction we were moving. This could prove quite frustrating as answers were not readily available to many questions, and often we had to ask the same questions multiple times over multiple meetings to understand the proposals we were supposed to be deciding between. This lack of response to our questions led to delays that I believe were a good part of what put us in the position we are now in. I share this in the interest of transparency. I want the board to know while I do see an effort of collaboration by the college, it has been a difficult and frustrating process at times to get necessary answers, especially when those answers needed to come from the consultants. After all that, I want to reiterate I do believe we will end up with a decent product at the end of this for faculty, and I do believe our input is being heard and incorporated. Also, I want to say that I can only speak from my experience on the faculty steering committee, and I do not speak for the staff as they are on a separate committee. I know the board has a lot on your plate right now, and I wanted to express my gratitude for the effort being made to keep an eye on the overall budget as well as the class and comp study as well as everything else you are looking at. Thank you so much. Your efforts are appreciated. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you very much for your remarks. I will go back to see if Sandra Wilson is onboard? Calum Jeffrion? Next is Sabie Endino (phonetic). >> Yes, I'm here. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Go ahead. >> Thank you. Thank you, and good evening, Board of Governors, and President Dor�. Thank you for the opportunity to share my great experience as a parent of a Vail early education former student. My son, a young Latino, Manuel Fuentes, graduated in the first class of Vail early education. He is about to graduate, thanks for the opportunity of PCC opening its doors at the East Campus. He was able to do a whole year with college level. He was also granted the Lumberjack scholarship at NAU, being able to study tuition-free. He's not only a successful story. I would like to brag about my dear good friend C. Augusto (phonetic) who is now a sophomore at U of A. He started to take his math classes at Pima Community College in his sophomore year in high school. I am pleased to tell you that he has been offered at Raytheon a paid internship as a system engineering, and all of this is for the great opportunity to have young students start at Pima Community College and advance in their careers. All of this is possible, thanks to the visionary leadership of Chancellor Lee Lambert and all of the administrators and great faculty that we have at Pima Community College. Thank you for the Board of Governors for the support. There is a lot more and great things that are happening at Pima Community College, and this is the time to continue moving forward in supporting our community, our students, our city, our county, and the state of Arizona through Pima Community College. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Those are moving and beautiful remarks, and what a great, amazing success story. Thank you so, so much for sharing that with all of us. We do need to hear more of that during these challenging times. Thank you so much. Take care. Next we have on the list Isaac Figueroa. >> Hello. Thank you, everyone, for the time. I'm actually a real estate developer here in Tucson with Larsen Baker, and I sit on the board of the Pima Community College Foundation. I'm also a native Tucsonan, first generation. My mom is from Mexico. She moved here, a single mother with five kids, and got her degree from U of A and began teaching and had a long career teaching Spanish at Pima Community College. I grew up around both U of A campus and Pima College. I went to Pima College. I actually went to high school at Pima College at Aztec Middle College, which was a joint venture between TUSD and Pima College, where even though I was a dropout at the beginning of high school, I turned my life around and got caught up and was able to do that because of this joint partnership with Pima College and Aztec Middle College to graduate on time. Went and finished my Associate's degree at Pima College while working at the college as a student service tech. Then I went to the U of A. Graduated from University of Arizona. Once I graduated, I worked again at Pima College as an advanced student service specialist, both for the county in the Workforce Investment Act and for the college before going on to getting into commercial real estate and development. All that to be said, I have a very, very intimate knowledge of Pima College from a very young age, and I can say resoundingly that Dr. Lee Lambert has been an amazing, amazing influence on the college. I have seen a night-and-day difference from both being an employee there, being a student, and just the overall direction of the college. And even now from a different lens of being a real estate developer where economic development itself is part of my expertise. Pima Community College is an amazing, amazing partner now for the greater region as far as training workforce and everything else. I attribute that to the great, to Lee Lambert as well as great members on the Board of Governors as well as amazing staff and employees. I'm just here to show my support and, you know, to make a comment I think that violating any kind of rules that are supposed to be part of being part of an elected position, incompetence shouldn't be excused for any reason besides fear of death or something like that. That being said, I will end it there. Thank you, everybody, for your time. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Mr. Figueroa, for your comments as well. Next we have on the list Mr. Edmund Marquez. >> I'm Edmund Marquez. Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be reading a letter from 133 different leaders in our community. This is to the Governing Board of Directors, Pima Community College, in regards to the future direction of Pima Community College. Dear Governing Board Members, We recently learned that Chancellor Lambert is being considered for a position at another community college district in Ventura, California. As business community and elected leaders, we want to express our concerns as to what this could mean for the positive momentum the college has experienced over the last nine years and urge the Governing Board to continue to embrace and support these new directions. Chancellor Lambert began at Pima when the college was under academic probation, and we appreciate his work, making needed changes, leading to Pima being named one of the top community colleges in the country by the prestigious Aspen Institute. The college's pivot to offering short-term credentials and Fast Track programs to meet the need for technically skilled workers for our region's growing industries is an example of a higher education institution moving at the speed of business to respond to changing workforce needs. Our workforce today must be highly adaptable, collaborative, digitally literate, and able to acquire new skills over a lifetime of work. Traditional methods of higher education and workforce training are becoming irrelevant for a young, mobile workforce, who bring on debt, embrace different pathways of learning, and through digital and remote platforms to learn anywhere any time. Chancellor Lambert wisely saw this trend years ago and has been positioning the college to meet this new reality. Innovative and visionary partnerships with our region's leading employers such as (audio cutting out). We applaud the Governing Board for supporting new facilities such as the newly opened automotive technology (audio cutting out ) advanced manufacturing center which will open next year. The community's (audio cutting out ) Proposition 481 modernizing a 40-year-old formula that limited college's expenditures. This now gives PCC the flexibility to adjust spending priorities to react to the fast-changing needs of Pima students and employers. Pima is on the right path, and it's become a critically important asset to the region's economic growth. New leadership could stall the success that Pima has seen in nearly a decade. Let's please not lose Pima's momentum. Respectfully, Paula Aboud, former Arizona state senator. Lewis Albert, professor, University of Arizona, former PCC campus president. Kathy Alexander, University of Phoenix. Michael and Susan Anderson from webuyhouses.com. Dr. Roger Anderson, DMD. Linda Arzoumanian, former Pima County School Superintendent, retired. Odit Augustine. Angela Bourley from Affinity Wealth Management. Donnette Bouley, CEO of Tucson Airport Authority. Andrew Burgensmith, an entertainment consultant. Bill Buckmaster, Buckmaster Communications, L.L.C. Jennifer Lee Carol, author. Rob Caylor, Caylor Design & Construction. Swain Chapman, commercial real estate. Jack Clements, HUB International. Jim Click, Jim Click Automotive. Judy Clinco, Catalina In-Home Services. Dan Coogan, Coogan & Martin. Jerry Dixon, the Gadsden Company. Rob Elias from the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Ali (indiscernible). Brad Feder from Simply Bits. Natalie Fernandez Lee from Meridian Health Management. Ray Flores from Flores Concepts and El Charro Restaurants. Susan Fernano, arts consultant. David Garcia, Onyx Creative. Filipe Garcia, Visit Tucson. Kristin Garcia Hernandez, Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona. Dr. Gardener. Gene Goldstein. Anna Gree. Michael Geiman, CEO of Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce. Mark Hanna, former PCC Governing Board member. Bryan Hannley, Innova Group, PCC Foundation board chair. Jane Henninger, HR consultant, retired. Ted Herman, Larsen Baker. Dr. Thomas Hicks. Margaret Higgins. Kate Hoffman. Mark Irvin, PCC Foundation board member. Ross A, founder and first director of Southern Arizona, Japanese Cultural Coalition. Nancy Johnson. Dan Jones. Julie K. Bill Kelly. Barry C. Daryl C. Adriana Romero. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Excuse me. You have gone over 3 minutes but we are going to extend your time for another minute. Go ahead. >> (Indiscernible.) Becky C. Kim B. Lanning. George Larsen, Larsen Baker. Angie N., Arizona Community Foundation. Penny Lee. Sylvia Lee, former PCC board member. Jan Lesher, Pima County Administrator. Karen Lunda. Paul Lindsey, former PCC board member. Umberto and Zerena Lopez. Alyssa Lovalo. Larry Lucero. Steve Lynn. Mariana M. Yvette Marie M. Me, Edmund Marquez. I'm the chair of the Tucson Metro Chamber, former PCC Foundation board chair. Lea Marquez Peterson, Chairwoman of the Arizona Corporation Commission. Doug Martin. Grace M., of the CTSO. Carrie M., U of A. Ted Maxwell, Southern Arizona Leadership Council. Nancy McClure. Ian McDowell. Cat Merrill. Lisa Miller. Christine Hays. Linda Morales. Rich Morrette. Gina Murphy. Shannon Murphy. David and Patrice P. Tony P., United Way of Tucson. Kathy P. Bobby R. Judy Rich. It goes on and on. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero. There is more and more and more. There is so much support for Lee Lambert. It's kind of ridiculous we are even having to defend him at this point. Lee Lambert is amazing for our community. We need to keep him here. We need to make sure we are doing what's best for the greater good for our community, period. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Edmund, for your remarks. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chair Ripley, what I'd like to do, I have a copy of the remarks and I'd like to submit it for the record, which will go into our board record as well. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Next we have Lea Marquez Peterson. >> Good afternoon. I hope you can hear me. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I want to lend my full support to the letter Edmund just read but also speak from the heart. I have known Lee Lambert since he applied for this position. I was honored to be on the recruiting nomination committee that was selecting him and looking at all the different candidates. Even at that point I was serving as president of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber at the time. It was clear to see what a visionary leader Lee was then. We have seen that apply to Southern Arizona since his leadership began. I want to put my full support behind Chancellor Lee Lambert. I hope that he continues to stay in Southern Arizona, continues to lead and continues the great relationships he has built with the business community specific to workforce development. We know that now, coming out of this COVID pandemic, we are in a tough spot in terms of employment, as small businesses, as large companies throughout the community, we need a key relationship with Pima Community College. Lee has done an incredible job in building partnerships and strategic relationships throughout Southern Arizona. I'm here to show my full support behind Lee Lambert. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Ms. Marquez Peterson, for those remarks. With that, I think we are at the end of the call to the audience. Next on the agenda is Governing Board recognition and/or awards, and I will hand this over to Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you so much. Good evening, Chair Ripley, members of the board, Dr. Dor� representing Chancellor Lee Lambert, colleagues and guests. This is such a wonderful season for us, the spring season brings a lot of celebration and acknowledgements and recognition of all of the hard work that has taken place by our students, by our faculty, our staff, and administrators. Tonight I feel honored to be recognizing on behalf of the college several people from -- there are students and there are community members and also employees who have received outstanding awards or recognitions. So I will read the names and what they are receiving. Let's all think of them and applaud them if we want to publicly or mentally for all of their accomplishments. I will start first with our students. Andrea Salazar Calderon, who was selected as 2022 All-USA Coca-Cola New Century transfer scholar placed on the First Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the District Office. Maximus Luevanos, selected as 2022 Coca-Cola bronze scholar and placed on the First Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the West Campus. Hannah Irwin, selected as a 2022 Coca-Cola silver scholar and placed on the First Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the District Office. Rachel Gravina, placed on the First Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the Desert Vista Campus. Halianna Piller, placed on the First Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the Downtown Campus. Danielle Ostrop, placed on the First Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the East Campus. Angela Ho, placed on the First Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the Northwest Campus. Michele Dashiell, placed on the Second Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the East Campus. Genesis Benedith, placed on the Second Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the Northwest Campus. Jakelynn Wert, placed on the Second Team of the 2022 All-Arizona Academic Team for the West Campus. We have Webster Rose, winner of the 2021 award for excellence in eLearning, Outstanding eLearning Student Award from Instructional Technology Council. I believe he's going to be our commencement speaker in a few days. That will be exciting to hear from him directly. Luke Hunt, Pima alumnus. Film "Sheep" was selected as the 2021 winner for best indigenous voices narrative at the Montana International Film Festival. So that completes the list of our students receiving recognitions, and let's applaud them for their accomplishments and their hard work in such a difficult time in this history with COVID, social unrest, all the competitions of life it brings. Our next group is going to be our community members we would also like to recognize for their outstanding contributions. We will start with Ericka Quintero Heras. Pima theater alumnus, awarded the 2021 Teacher of the Year Award at the Arizona State Thespian Festival for her work as a theater educator at Salpointe Catholic High School. Erin Donaghy, Pima alumnus, clothing line featured in the Sustainable Fashion Week U.S. Lineup. Justin Haugen, Pima alumnus, presenter at the 2021 ShutterFest Conference. Vanessa Saavedra, Pima alum. Featured as the cover art in a Mexican gallery exhibit, Las Iluministas. She was featured in Pink Collar Gallery in the UK and Pima's website regarding her artwork that speaks against femicide. These are wonderful contributions. Let's give them a warm round of applause to our community members. The last category is employees, our wonderful employees at the college. I'm delighted to also be recognizing them tonight. David Arellano, one of 24 community college leaders nationwide chosen for the National Community College Hispanic Council's Leadership Fellows Program for 2021. Jason Brown, serving second term on the national research advisory board for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Stacy Naughton, certified as a curriculum administrator and catalog manager by software vendor Modern Campus. Stephen Ebel, eLumen Helping Hand Award from eLumenation. Priscilla Nguyen, accepted as a board member to the Wellness Council of Arizona. Dorothy Netherlin, received the personal achievement award from the Wellness Council of Arizona, part of the Champions of Worksite Wellness. Ann Marie Condes, awarded the 2021 College Educator Award For Excellence in Teaching by the Southern Arizona section of the American Chemical Society. Kimlisa Duchicela. Recognized as a 2021 outstanding eLearning educator from the Instructional Technology Council. We have three recognitions for Anh-Thuy Nguyen, featured in an article by Art & Seek about her work featured in Ro2 Art Gallery in Dallas' exhibit, "What Does It Mean to Be Visible?" Also for Anh-Thuy, photographs were featured at the Tucson Museum of Art 4x4 exhibit. Also, prints displayed in the "Welcome to the Machine Experimentation and Abstraction" exhibit at the Bandung Photography Triennale in Bandung, Indonesia. Most recently, "I Will Come Home 2" print was featured at the Houston Center For Photography as part of the "Learning Curve 14" exhibit in Houston, Texas. These prints are examples of unique photograms. We have Alexander Tentser, planned and performed in the Ukrainian emergency relief benefit concert. 100% of the funds went to the Hungarian Reformed Church aid, offering humanitarian assistance in Ukraine. Noe Badillo, accepted to present a paper on Giordano Bruno at the 19th Annual International Society for Neoplatonic Studies Conference in Athens, Greece. We have Ernesto Esquer. Featured in the Andrew Smith Gallery's fall exhibit and the grand opening of the gallery space in Tucson's Barrio Viejo. Hiro Tashima, selected to have his ceramic sculpture "The Yellow Banana Kong" shown at the Mino International Ceramic Festival in Japan. Also for Hiro, selected to have his ceramic work displayed in Yoshiaki Inoue Gallery in Shinsaibashi, Osaka, Japan. We have Darla Aguilar, elected president of the Arizona Chapter of the National Organization For Student Success. Finally, we have the CLT Online Project Team, awarded the Excellence in eLearning Award for Culinary 130 savory cuisine 1 from the Instructional Technology Council. Please join me in giving them a round of applause to our employees. We have this amazing list of students, community members, and our employees who have received such wonderful recognition for their contributions to scholarly work and to benefit the college and our students as a whole. Thank you very much. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Dr. Duran-Cerda, for that incredible piece of information. What superstars we have right here now, in the past, and in the future. Thanks so much. Next on the agenda we will move on to our reports section. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: One moment, Chairperson? We actually have the faculty emeritus that I'm going to be presenting, as well. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Oh, I didn't know that. Excuse me. Go ahead. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: That's okay. Again, it's an honor for me to present our faculty emeritus recognitions, and we have the faculty emeriti here with us as part of the panelists. As a former faculty member, everyone can imagine how special and meaningful it is for me to be recognizing our former faculty and faculty emeritus now. The Governing Board confers emeritus status on distinguished individuals retired from the college to signify honor and respect for outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the college over many years. Faculty, administrators receiving such an award exemplify the characteristics of ideal community college educators who, through their professional careers at Pima College, have contributed significantly to their discipline, to student success, professional organizations, their campuses, and the Pima community. Emeritus nominations come from the Faculty Senate and the chancellor's Executive Leadership Team who forward recommended nominations to the Governing Board for approval. Faculty emeriti receive several benefits such as a tuition waiver, a lifetime e-mail, and a library card that gives them the same access and privileges at the Pima College library as a full-time faculty. Also, they will be receiving their beautiful framed certificates in the mail. I don't know if you all received it yet, but if you haven't, it's coming. I am pleased to announce the following 2022 faculty who have been awarded emeritus status at the college. Scott Collins, math department, who has been at the college since 1994 and completed in 2022. Christina Felty from the visual arts department. Her years of service were from 1995 to 2017. Sylvia Kolchens, chemistry department. Years of service from 1995 to 2021. Mickey Levendusky, from the math department. Her years of service, 1991 to 2018. Mark Nelson from the music department. Served from 2000 to 2021. Mike Tveten from the biology department. Served from 1988 to 2021. Please join me in congratulating these wonderful faculty emeriti. We are so proud of your accomplishments and everything you have done as a legacy for Pima Community College. (Applause.) >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you all. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, and congratulations once again. Thank you so much, Dr. Duran-Cerda, for such joyful news. Thank you. Next we finally will go on to reports. With that, the first report will be administration report by Dr. Nic Richmond, the status of strategic priorities. >> DR. RICHMOND: Chair Ripley, members of the board, Dr. Dor�, colleagues and guests. It's my pleasure to be here this evening to provide an update on the status of Pima's strategic priorities. Approximately a year ago the college approved a new mission fulfillment framework. Of course within that we have the mission statement which is so vital, identifying the institution as an open admissions institution serving the community within Pima County. When we think about the college's strategic priorities, we are more focused around the vision of the institution and the purpose. As we seek to be a premier community college and improve the way in which we fulfill our purpose of transforming lives through affordable education, we need to engage in substantial, meaningful progress often with projects that stretch over a number of years to see them to full completion. These priorities are outlined through three major plans. Strategic plan, approved by the Governing Board unanimously one year ago. Then also from a few years further back we have the facilities and the education master plans. It's my purpose today to share an update on some of the key priorities within these different plans. I should note now, I am speaking as a representative for a wide group of people. Many different units, many different individuals are directly involved in these different projects, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who have been involved in this work for their efforts. Before we talk about the priorities, I would like to touch briefly on some of the college's institutional key performance indicators. We use a number of metrics to monitor the performance of the college, and what we are looking at here are the two-year progress measures from the Voluntary Framework of Accountability. These are lagging indicators where we identify new students to the institution, and then we monitor their progress and outcomes over the course of two years. What we hope to see over time is an increase in their successful progress and completion and a decrease in those measures that indicate a lack of success. What you see in the chart here are the results for the cohorts starting from fall 2012 through to fall 2019. Now, in some areas there are positives that we can celebrate. To pick a couple of examples, fall to next term retention rate is shown in the dark blue line. It's fluctuated over time. It's increased a little bit. It's dropped a little bit. But for the fall 2019 students we see a fairly significant increase in the proportion of students continuing from fall into spring, which is really encouraging to see. In addition, if you look at the gray line running through the center of the chart, this represents those students still enrolled in their second year. This has increased from about 38% up to 44% over the course of the time period we see here. In other areas, there are metrics that need maybe a little bit more attention, though in some respects these are impacted directly by the pandemic. If you look at the lower-most line here in pink, this is a proportion of those new students who completed a certificate or degree within their first two years. This of course is a really important metric for the institution as we work to improve completion rates as part of the Achieve60AZ initiative. Back in fall 2012, 5.6% of starting students completed within two years. That increased to 11.5% by fall 2018. Unfortunately we see a decline for those students who started in fall 2019, and this is most likely impacted by the pandemic. This is an area we need to look to to understand so we can support student completion moving forward. These are some of the metrics we look to. Let's talk about some of those key priorities we are working on to help improve these progress and outcomes measures. The first I'd like to highlight is from the education master plan. These are the Centers of Excellence projects. Here you see photos and images showing progress to date. What you have in the upper left is the Aviation Technology Center. Alongside that we have the Advanced Manufacturing Building. Across the bottom we have the West Campus Science Labs and a plan for the Health Professions Center of Excellence. As you can see here, there is lots of activity and a significant development underway. On this slide, I'm showing information on the status of these different projects and the anticipated completion date. Aviation technology completion is expected in June 2022. Very soon now, just a month away. We have other progress that we expect to complete during the course of this year and then into future years. I won't read all of the details here, but you can see that there are a number of things across the Advanced Manufacturing Building, West Campus Science Labs and other areas where we anticipate significant advances in the facilities available for our programs as we progress through the year. I would like to thank Dr. Dor� and his team and the facilities team for providing the updates. In particular, Ernie Federico who provided the detailed information on the completion status. Next up, I would like to touch on guided pathways. This is a major initiative in the academic area of the institution. It's being implemented in part over the course of a number of years, reflected in the current strategic plan with major milestones for this year, next year, and the following year. Current year milestones, these are the status figures that you see recorded here. Three of the milestones are fully complete. Another is 75% complete. This is the final one in the table, to place all new-to-higher-education learners on a planner by the end of their first semester. This is always a work in progress. There has been 100% outreach to all new-to-higher-education students, and their current status is that 75% of them are on a planner by the end of that first semester. One of these items is still in progress, and this is the item to provide detailed information to Web Systems for the college website about guided pathways. During the first-year work on this item, it was determined that because of limited staff time in Web Systems, in order to do this correctly it would be necessary to engage with an external group to support the work. This one will take a little bit more time. This is an example of the college adjusting timelines slightly to reflect available resources to ensure we can do these projects right as opposed to rushing them or trying to complete them without the full resources that we need. I'd like to give my thanks to Dr. Duran-Cerda and Wendy Weeks for providing the update on guided pathways. Finally, I'd like to touch on the overall strategic plan progress for Year 1. Now, Year 1 of course is not yet complete. That will end on June 30th of this year. Our current status is 83% complete. We anticipate that many more of these items will be fully complete by the end of June. Among the priorities included in Year 1 are the development of three new major college-wide plans. This includes the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan; the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan; and also the college's first Climate Action Sustainability Plan. There are also initiatives related to open educational resources to reduce the cost to students of textbooks and other course materials. And also work to prioritize high quality customer service and learner engagement in everything that we do. I'm not going to talk in detail about these specific priorities, in the interest of time, but I would like to note that there is a detailed update on open educational resources in the accompanying executive summary available in the board materials, and my thanks to Josie Milliken for providing that update. In terms of next steps, there are many things that are going to be underway next year related to the strategic priorities. First, we received recommendations from an external consultant on the education and facilities master plans. Those recommendations were discussed at the Futures Conference just a few weeks ago, and it's anticipated that by December of this year we will bring forward final recommendations of new actions and adjustments to those two master plans. Also, as mentioned, we have three new college-wide plans that will be going into effect over the summer and running into the next few years. Then finally, we have some additional strategic plan priorities that will be completed during the year. This includes rebuilding learner-facing and community-facing processes to make the college an easier and simpler organization with which students can engage. We will also... >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: You have about a minute left. >> DR. RICHMOND: Thank you. We will also be implementing reverse transfer. This is a means through which students and learners can earn an award from Pima by leveraging the credits that they complete after they transfer to another institution. And also, we are looking to expand completion points. We know that for many of our students, they are not necessarily looking for a Pima degree or certificate. They may be looking for an industry credential that enables them to move into the career that's of interest to them. So we're looking to expand completion points to reflect those meaningful awards and qualifications students can earn by attending classes with Pima. And with that, that concludes the summary I have for this evening, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Any questions from the board? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes, Dr. Richmond, can you please go to one of your slides at the very beginning where you state the Centers of Excellence, something about the architect has been -- let's see. Downtown Campus hotel properties, architect selection complete. How can that be when it's on our agenda for a consent agenda right now? >> DR. RICHMOND: That's an excellent question. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No, so the answer is that the selection committee did its part. There is the preferred vendor. What's coming to you tonight is approval to enter a contract with that vendor. So it is true that the process completed and that the preferred vendor was selected. It's also true that it's on the agenda tonight for the board to authorize entering an agreement with that particular architect. Does that help clarify it? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: But it doesn't say that on our paper. It was selected. It says that it's delegating authority. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So we could -- to clarify, the selection process happened. There is a preferred architect that the college would like to enter a contract with, and the item on the agenda I believe is in the consent agenda for tonight is for the board to authorize the chancellor or designee to proceed with completing a contract with the architect that was the top selection from the process. Does that clarify? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: It's clear to me now, but I would appreciate it though if, for transparency reasons, those things would be listed on here to be explained. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of order, Ms. Garcia, those items are listed on the consent agenda, and all of the subsequent documents are posted on the website. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other questions for Dr. Richmond? Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Richmond, for that. Strategy is really important for our foundation so we can move on and do what we are meant to do here. Next report is coming from Marty Macias, overview of employee complete process. Marty? >> MARTY MACIAS: Hello, everyone. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Do you want me to start off? Let me just say Marty Macias is investigator in the Office of Dispute Resolution. Before she was at Pima, she spent a substantial part of her career as a Civil Rights investigator for the State of Arizona, investigating housing, employment, and other discrimination claims. Then spent a significant amount of time at the City of Tucson doing similar work. From time to time, individuals have raised questions or concerns about whether there is discrimination at Pima, how do we look into that, is there an effective complaint process. We thought it would be helpful for Marty to provide an overview, a little bit of context about that and have some other data that I thought might be helpful to share. Marty, if you want that report or chart displayed, please let us know and we can put it up on the screen. >> MARTY MACIAS: No, that's fine. Thank you, Jeff. Actually, you just gave most of my presentation, but that's okay (smiling). Good evening, everyone. Thank you for requesting something from ODR. As Jeff said, I am the investigator for Pima College's Office of Dispute Resolution. The Office of Dispute Resolution was established in 2014 at the permission of Chancellor Lambert as a centralized source for filing complaints, concerns, inquiries of any kind from any member of the community. The college offers various ways for individuals to file complaints from phone calls to an online hotline, database, e-mail. There is no barrier for someone if they think that they have a concern that the college needs to look at. As Jeff previously stated, I began as a Civil Rights investigator in 1997, working for the Civil Rights division of the Arizona Attorney General's Office. I was trained by assistant attorneys general who are exceptional at what they do. In 2005 I hired on with the City of Tucson as their investigator in the office of equal opportunity programs. In both of those positions, as Jeff said, I investigated housing, employment, and public accommodation discrimination complaints. In January of 2019, I accepted my position with Pima College as their second investigator in the Office of Dispute Resolution, ODR, another acronym for us to keep in our memories. I received my training there and direction from former investigator Ross Estavillo who is responsible for the success of ODR. He established the processes for addressing every type of complaint we receive, and I am committed to making sure that those processes are kept in place, as well as helping others in the college understand and follow those processes. I assure you that I know what I'm doing. I carefully review concerns, complaints, inquiries, from any member of the community, and I will conduct an investigation if I have sufficient basis for doing so. For the purposes of this meeting, I don't mind telling you that I am one of the best Civil Rights investigators in Tucson. I don't play favorites. I don't tamper with evidence. I don't misrepresent the facts. Part of ODR's responsibility is to memorialize the complaints we receive, using the database that those go into. We prepare quarterly reports for general counsel to review when requested and of course when Chancellor Lambert makes a request for information and statistics. I conducted a search of the complaints for fiscal year 2020 and 2021. Of the 100 complaints in that year, nine of them have mention of the word "discrimination." Of those nine, one was forwarded to our Title IX staff, one was from an anonymous complainant and the evidence collected did not support or refute the allegations, one was outside of the college's jurisdiction, and six were from individuals who did not respond to requests for more information or the information did not support the allegations that they made. ODR has determined that there is no pattern of discrimination against women or men or members of any protected category. What is evident is a practice of individuals making allegations against others and then refusing to cooperate with an investigation. What we have found is that some individuals are under the impression that they can make allegations against someone but not present the specifics that could be investigated. They expect that whatever they say will be used to exact adverse action against the accused person. Guilty until proven innocent is not this college's way of addressing concerns. Anyone accused of discrimination or any other violation of a college policy is entitled to and will receive due process, and this cannot occur when complainants refuse to cooperate. Our concern is whether the individuals who make accusations but refuse to cooperate with investigations, whether they will be held accountable for their actions. Our office will investigate when we have the required information and cooperation from a complainant, and we report only facts that can be supported. Thank you for your time. If there are any questions or comments, I'm happy to answer. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Marty. Any questions or comments from the board? No? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I do have just a clarifying question. You said something that I think is just, at the very end, that's so important and I want to hear it again, about the importance of individuals who are bringing forward concerns and the necessity per our institutional policies and our employee handbook for them to share the details of the incident so an investigation can happen. >> MARTY MACIAS: Yes. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I think what you said was so clear is that we have to have due process, and people are not guilty until proven innocent in the context of this institution. There really has to be evidence, and then an investigation is conducted. And the facts are facts. I think it's so important. I really appreciate you articulating that so clearly, because so often this board hears complaints that are just allegations with unsubstantiated evidence, and some people on this board take that as fact. And it's so important that the process exists, and I'm just so appreciative that you are here and continue to lead this office with integrity, investigating these concerns and ensuring that the truth comes forward. So thank you. >> MARTY MACIAS: Thank you. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Would you mind indulging me for like a minute? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Sure. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Andrea, can you put up that one chart? What I wanted to show is one thing of course none of this means that things are perfect at Pima and there aren't instances where people do engage in wrongful conduct. That clearly happens. What hopefully comes across is that we have a way to deal with that and it's imperative, as noted, that people come forward with the specifics so we can really dive in and figure out what the appropriate remedy is. The one thing I wanted to show was there are times when individuals feel that the most appropriate thing to do is to make a charge of discrimination with an outside agency. That could either be the State of Arizona or the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What I wanted to do is show you what the statistics for that look like for the last five years, just to provide a little context. Can we make that bigger? So first, it's worth noting if you combine our regular employees, adjunct faculty, and temporary employees, we are talking well over 2,000 individuals. It's not surprising that in a given year someone is dissatisfied enough to want to make a complaint. So I just, like I said, I thought it would be helpful for context to show this is what has happened for the last few years when people went outside the college. This shows each year how many charges were filed, what the basic category of the complaint was, whether the case is closed or pending, and most importantly, whether the agency made a finding adverse to Pima or not. In each case, there was no adverse finding. In other words, an outside agency, someone completely unassociated with Pima, investigated and did not find that there had been discrimination or retaliation at Pima College. I just thought it would be helpful to show that the results here hopefully help provide some confidence that there is not a significant problem at Pima and that we are resolving issues, and it's only in a rare instance when someone goes outside of the college and when they do, this is what happens. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Mr. Silvyn, could you just rearticulate again very clearly for anyone who is listening who doesn't feel like our process is adequate where they can go to file complaints? What are these offices and how can they bring forward a complaint? Because this board has continually said we welcome concerns and encourage people who see or feel anything going on in this institution that they feel is inappropriate to bring forward their complaints, go through the process, and if they don't feel the process is adequate, now they can seek outside intervention. Could you very clearly for the record just state what those options are? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Sure, be glad to. I totally appreciate why it's an uncomfortable thing for someone to do to come forward and make an allegation like that. No question it's uncomfortable. Retaliation is not allowed at Pima College. We would take disciplinary action against someone who retaliates. So hopefully that provides some assurance. It's also why we have an independent office like ODR. So Office of Dispute Resolution is not part of any business unit. It reports to general council and ultimately to the chancellor. So they are not part of the reporting chain. So anyone who has a concern or a complaint and don't know where to go, the best place they can go is to the Office of Dispute Resolution. The phone number is posted on the web. There is an e-mail address that can be used. We have an online complaint form people can fill out. They can choose to identify themselves or not. They can remain anonymous. The only challenge with an anonymous complaint is if we don't get all the information we need, it's very hard to investigate, but we have a way to communicate with someone through that platform that allows them to continue to remain anonymous. So let me emphasize that. There is a way for us to communicate with the complainant and allow them to remain anonymous and get the information we need to do an investigation. That's an avenue open to someone. If they are not -- hopefully they are comfortable with that. Of course if someone has any issue in an employment-related matter, they can always go to the human resources department which will also either assist them or help connect them to ODR. But in either case, what's imperative is people do bring forward their complaints and share the information they have so we can figure out if there is something going wrong. I guess the other thing I would say is we didn't have the stats here but we certainly have taken corrective action up to and including separating people when the evidence warranted that as an outcome. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Marty. Thank you, Mr. Silvyn. Just on behalf of the board, I mean, part of our oversight duties is precisely this, is to ensure there is zero tolerance for any kind of discrimination or harassment. And all of the other issues or complaints that might come across, we have oversight responsibility to ensure they are all taken seriously and all investigated to the proper end. We are really fortunate to have someone of your caliber, Marty, on this team and running the Office of Dispute Resolution for that reason. Thank you for what you do. And I hope people are listening that know that there are processes in place. And again, saying the words "zero tolerance" and having posters and fliers is one thing, but really taking action on it by having someone of your caliber is what really makes us sleep at night. Thank you so much, Marty and Mr. Silvyn. With that, the next item on the agenda are the reports by representatives to the board. We have 20 minutes for this. The first report will come from the student report from Collin Bryant. >> COLLIN BRYANT: Good evening, Chairwoman Ripley, board members, faculty, students, guests. For the final Student Senate project update, I'd like to let you all know that it is nearly complete. The words "Spread Kindness" are painted, and just today student senators at Downtown Campus were collecting handprints on the murals from students and staff. It's on a large 10-by-10 piece of framed canvas that can be transported and toured to different campuses. First it will be hung at Downtown Campus. The senate would like to thank everybody who has been involved with this project, especially Student Life, the art department, health and safety, and facilities. Since this is the last meeting, I'd like to leave a point of improvement for the Governing Board regarding September meetings. Since Student Senate meets over the summer, it would be most efficient if the student representative is given time to present at the first Governing Board meeting of the year in September. This would allow the Pima Aztec Student Senate to present ideas to the board early in the year and in essence get a jump on what they are going to accomplish for the '22/'23 school year. I'd like to thank the board for their response and action taken on each of the issues Pima Aztec Student Senate has brought forward this year. Right from the start the issues that the senate has brought forward were taken seriously and acted on with urgency. This goes with lighting issues at Downtown, same goes for the Wi-Fi issues at East Campus. The Pima Aztec Student Senate is proud to say we have spurred the gender-neutral bathroom issue, promoting equality for all. There's been one common thread for these issues, one person on the board has shown a special dedication to the Student Senate and the person we'd all like to thank is Dr. Dor� for always coming through when we needed him most, and again, PCC Board of Governors for fostering a successful Student Senate this year. With that being said, thank you all for your time and have a good night. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much. Of course you're the reason why we are here. Thank you so much for what you do, and we look forward to hearing from you in the fall. Just as a reminder, we have one more meeting in June before summer break. Next to report is adjunct faculty, Sean Mendoza. >> SEAN MENDOZA: Chairwoman Ripley, Chancellor Lambert, members of the board, honored guests. With the spring semester coming to an end, I want to provide an update to the adjunct faculty tiered system. The new system can be found at the end of the faculty compensation policy posted yesterday for 21-day comment. I encourage the board, my fellow adjunct faculty peers, and the college community to review the work of our committee and the AERC. Since the adjunct faculty are not part of the classification study, classification and compensation study here at the college, our addition to this policy is particularly important to all part-time instructional employees. We, the committee, believe that by recognizing the years of service and professional development of its employees, this tiered system can help retain qualified and quality faculty members with a focus on student success. If all goes well, we hope you will strongly consider supporting this initiative when it hopefully comes before you for approval later this summer. Some of us at the adjunct faculty ranks have been waiting for this tiered initiative since 2014. And by hitting this 21-day comment milestone, I'd like to recognize Sarah Jansen and Kate Schmidt for their leadership. Dr. David Bea for his fiscal wisdom and partnership. And Chancellor Lambert and Provost Duran-Cerda for their support of our employee group. And lastly, the board for creating an environment where the voices of adjunct faculty are both heard and valued. Thank you for your continued support of the adjunct faculty. Have a great summer, and I look forward to seeing you in the fall. Lastly, congratulations to all the Pima Community College students who will be graduating later this month. This ends my report. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Sean. We hear you. Without adjunct faculty, we couldn't do what we do. Thank you so much for that. Next, staff report from Erika Elias. >> ERIKA ELIAS: Good evening, Chairperson Ripley, members of the board, Chancellor, guests. Student affairs is having distressed student trainings at all the different campuses for staff. Academic success counselors are helping staff members understand this difference between students that are in crisis and students that are just encountering everyday issues. This is another way that student affairs is helping to support not only our students but our staff members as well. I wish everybody a really good summer, and this concludes my report. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Erika. Next we have a faculty report from Denise Reilly. >> DENISE REILLY: Good evening, Chair Ripley, members of the board, colleagues and guests. Graduation 2022 is upon us. As faculty, we will all be there to celebrate our student successes. Faculty accomplishments, you will note in the notable faculty accomplishment section of the board report, you will note that student success has a compilation of yearly accolades by department, but I wanted to highlight the 40, yes, that's a correct number, the 40 faculty OER fellows who applied to increase the no-cost textbooks, as Dr. Richmond mentioned earlier with the OER initiative. I also want to thank Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda for acknowledging the faculty emeritus here. The reason I bring that up is because each of these faculty emeritus that are in the room have 20-plus years of service given to Pima Community College. We want and need strong leadership at the college that support faculty. We are in the trenches, we like to say, day in and day out. We are also in it for the long haul here at Pima Community College. So with many administrators leaving, possibly leaving, availabilities currently in high positions, we just want to be sure that we acknowledge and that we recognize and we recruit and retain leaders that believe in faculty. Members of the Governing Board, thank you for all your support to faculty over this past year, and we look forward to continuing our reports and communication and relationship. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Denise. Again, thanks to all faculty, both adjunct and permanent faculty, and this is why we are here. We are here for the students, but you make it all happen. Indeed you are in the trenches, pretty literally, so thank you for that. That concludes our reports, representatives to the board. Next report will be from Dr. Dor� in place of Chancellor Lee Lambert. >> DR. DOR�: Thank you, Chair Ripley, and members of the board. First, on behalf of the chancellor, I want to welcome two of our new administrators. Brandy Delana, who is our new assistant vice chancellor for facilities. Brandy comes to us most recently from the University of Arizona where she was a construction project manager. Before that, she had several years with the South Orange County Community College District in California overseeing a lot of capital projects there. We want to welcome Brandy. Also want to welcome Dr. Josie Milliken who is our new dean of distance education. And actually, Dr. Milliken has been in this role since last July but it's now permanent. Josie also was a department head for online. She was a writing faculty member. She was the president of our academic senate. We really want to welcome Josie Milliken as well. I want to highlight some of the events of this, since the last board meeting. We had on April 14 our signing day. So this is really our way to celebrate the commitment that our incoming students make. And Chair Ripley, thank you so much for the inspiring words you gave to those students who committed that day. And thank you, Board Member Clinco, for being present as well. We gave out a number of scholarships, and several hundred students committed to finishing their programs. Also, really want to commend our business students. They participate every year in a Case Competition at the University of Arizona. They won first place this year. They have won first place five out of the last seven years, and they are competing with other community colleges in the state. Real kudos to our business students and to Dean Jim Craig and department head Vivian Knight and all those faculty advisors that coach those students. The chancellor and others of us participated in a Town Hall meeting for access and disability. We held a panel. I want to thank Ken Hosto, our director of Access and Disability Resources, and Hilda Ladner who coordinated that. We had a wonderful panel that was moderated by Ken Hosto with Dr. Amanda Kraus from the University of Arizona and Jay Johnson from the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind. And then Marty Macias, who you heard from, participated in that as well. These discussions, we have been doing this with community groups throughout the year, are helping to inform our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan. Also, the chancellor participated in an event at the University of Arizona. He was on a panel with President Robbins and with Kathy Prather, and they talked about the future of work and its impact on education. Also, Nic mentioned our Futures Conference that we had on April 22nd. I want to thank Nic Richmond and the whole team who coordinated that. We talked about our facilities and educational plan, master plans, as well as that climate action plan and got input from the community. On April 22nd, the chancellor and a group of us, we met with the leadership of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the commander and his leadership team, who are very impressed with what we are doing in our Centers of Excellence. They want to come over to see the centers. They were particularly interested in our cybersecurity center. Also, we had great representation at the Annual American Association of Community Colleges Conference in New York. We had four of our groups at Pima that gave presentations. Everything from we did apprenticeships, we did on our microcredentials, and then we also talked about closing equity gaps. I think we were one of the best represented in terms of presentations. Also, on May 5, we had a meeting with the leadership of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe with the chairman and the council. Both the chancellor and chairman, they exchanged gifts. The chairman and the council were very interested again in our Centers of Excellence, so they want to come over to really tour all those centers. We are going to schedule a tour for them to see all of our Centers of Excellence, as well. And then you already mentioned the Chef Jeff, and we just want to thank -- I really want to thank Jim Craig and Jewel Mideau and the Pima Community College Foundation, Marcy Euler, who really made that happen. One of the most powerful I think moments was when after that, the next day, many of us, or a few of us accompanied Chef Jeff to the federal penitentiary and the federal prison, and how he spoke to those inmates about Second Chance was really inspiring. He also went and spoke to the Gospel Rescue Mission, as well. The final thing I want to do is I actually want to acknowledge our student senators and the incredible work they have done this year. They are to be commended. They have been both professional in the way they have advanced the college forward, and their advocacy for the students has been really remarkable. This mural project, which you are all going to see, that's going to be a wonderful gift to the college. That concludes my report. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you so much, Dr. Dor�. Next we go on to information items. Those items were posted publicly, so we will go next -- there are five items on that. Next is the consent agenda, also provided in the board documents. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Excuse me. I would like to table some items on the consent agenda. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of clarification. Tabling means we wouldn't vote on them, or we could consider them separately, I think. Mr. Silvyn? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: I was going to see if I can ask a clarifying question. So table, as Mr. Clinco is saying, means we would move them to a different board meeting. Pulling them from the consent agenda means we would move them to later in the agenda, have a regular discussion, treat them like a regular action item instead of a consent agenda. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, one item, 4.4, I would like to have a discussion on that one. And on 4.14, put that on a different agenda, because I think on that one I would like more information as far as a study session. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Chair Ripley, I believe that as a point of order, moving an item to a future agenda would require a vote. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So my suggestion, based on what you have indicated you would prefer, is we are going to pull both of them from the consent agenda, make them regular action items, so we can discuss the one and the board can vote or table it. On the one where your preference is to move it to a later board meeting, then when it's treated as a regular action item, that can be the discussion at that point, and that could be a motion to table it. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: So what we are going to do then is discuss 4.4 and 4.14. Is that what I'm understanding? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Right. To be clear, based on what you have requested, what we would do is move the consent agenda minus 4.4 and 4.14, and then when we get to the action section of the agenda, the next part, we will take both of those two items separately, but we will deal with both of them as part of the next section of the agenda. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: That's fine. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So I have made a motion, so I will withdraw my motion and then I will offer a new motion based on what Mr. Silvyn just outlined with the full consent agenda approval minus 4.4 and 4.14 to be considered separately. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: All those in favor? (Ayes.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: The motion to approve consent agenda minus items 4.4 and 4.14 has been approved. Next we have the action items. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: You can take them in whatever order you like. We can take the agenda in the order it is and then end with 4.4 and 4.14, or if you want to do them first, you can do them first, whatever the pleasure of the board is. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Why don't we go down the list, 5.1, 5.2, then 4.4 and 4.14. Let's do that. Okay? So 5.1 is capital project plan for fiscal year 2023, and I turn that over for discussion or introduction to Dr. Bea. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: If I might, point of order, so normally what we do is read the recommendation. A board member moves the recommendation, there is a second, and then we have discussion. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Sorry about that. For action items 5.1, 5.2, 4.4, 4.14, do we have a motion to -- >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Sorry. Let me clarify what I'm saying. We are going to take them one at a time, and for each one, we will read the recommendation, see if a board member would like to make a motion, and then if there is a second we will have discussion on the item, including presentation or and then board members can either vote the item or if someone would like to amend the recommendation you can do that. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Let's start with item 5.1. Dr. Bea, would you like to please read the recommendation? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Mr. Silvyn. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Mr. Silvyn. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Usually I do it. Let me read the recommendation, if you don't mind, and we will see if a board member would like to make a motion, if there is a second, and then we will go to discussion, and then we will deal with whatever procedural issues come up after that. So 5.1, capital fund budget and college reserves. The chancellor recommends the Governing Board approve $49 million in capital projects and estimated life cycle needs for fiscal year 2023. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: All those in favor -- >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: No. So -- >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Discussion? Sorry. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Now we're going to have discussion, and if you'd like Dr. Bea to share some information, this would be an appropriate time to do that. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I would start maybe with an introduction from Mr. Dor�. >> DR. DOR�: So I'd like to introduce Dr. Bea who will address this issue. (Laughter.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Good evening, Chairperson Ripley, members of the board, Dr. Dor�, colleagues and guests. I'm going to be talking tonight about a couple of items related to the proposed budget starting with the capital project plan, and then I will get into the next item will be more detail related to the budget as a whole. The capital budget, the way that the college puts together our capital budget is that we ask -- it's sort of a bottom-up approach where we ask the different units to put together what their capital needs might be for the year, compile it through an automated process, and then compare the list of what the wants and needs are to the resources available. We put together a presentation that's got a little more detail than we have done in the past years to show a little bit longer-term perspective of where things look, and then also, the other thing that we did this year is really focus on not only the priorities of the college, what we know we need to do, but also -- ah, my screen is shooting by -- making sure that we actually have the capacity to manage those projects in the course of the year. So the focus this year is really on identifying the realistic cash outlays that will happen in the course of the year for the projects that are already preapproved and need additional funding and for those new upcoming projects. We provided detailed information in terms of where the funding sources for those projects are. One of the reasons that I'm saying that having a realistic portrayal of what might happen in the course of the year is that because we have so many projects going on right now, we have had realistic, in terms of you have what we can possibly manage as a college, and then we also, as you know, there are a number of challenges in terms of getting equipment, equipment available through pipelines and the marketplace. That's been particularly true for IT equipment. So some of this stuff, it's sort of a realistic portrayal of what we can possibly do this coming year. The other thing that's worth mentioning, once those projects and wants and needs are identified, they are vetted through a process where facilities, IT, and strategic planning all review the projects to make sure that they are in alignment with what the college needs are, making sure the projects identify the proper costs associated with those projects, and that they meet the college strategic needs as a whole. So that's basically the summary of how the process works. Then what we do is we take a look at the resources available, and this is a detailed spreadsheet that summarizes what the assets are available, looking at the time frame was as of January, identifying the assets that we had available and then taking from those assets available or the resources available commitments and other payables, other liabilities, those kinds of things, take those out of the mix to identify what kind of resources we have available. That's what's located here at the bottom. So resources available after all of those things are taken out get to about $60 million. And then this is a new worksheet we have been identifying. This is sort of a risk assessment approach to looking at the finances and where we are at with the college in terms of known, we know we want to invest as much as we can in the infrastructure at the college to get these Centers of Excellence up and running, to get the proper equipment up and running for students to be trained on state-of-the-art equipment, but then we also have realistic resource availability. What this is doing is looking at how do we spread these different projects out over the course of the next few years. What does it look like in terms of the risk, in terms of are we overspending, are we spending down the fund balances we have accumulated over the years? What it really shows here, and it's in the yellow for the year 1 and 2, is because in reality, we know that in the upcoming two years we are going to be finishing up those Center of Excellence projects and deliberately spending down some of the accumulated fund balance that we have generated over the last number of years. The budget presentation has another slide that shows how our fund balance has accumulated over time, and you can see there is healthy growth going on, but we don't want to necessarily continue to grow. We want to reinvest in the college. That's why the college and the board put together a board policy, a finance policy, that sort of sets what targeted reserves are going to be and gives us a target threshold to be able to reinvest our resources back into the college and not spend down and deplete the resources of the reserves that we have to an unhealthy level. What you want for credit purposes, for emergency, unforeseen issues that might come up, you want to have a healthy reserve on hand for all of those purposes. So what we are trying to do is balance those different needs, needs of the college, along with the resources that we have available. In your packet is a detailed list of all of the proposed projects for fiscal year '23. This shows them specific to the revenue bonds projects, finishing up the revenue bonds projects where we need to add a bit more funding to some of those projects and the different expected years for when we will be spending the money. Then this is again similarly shows where the money has been spent to date. The remaining revenue bonds funds that we have set aside for those projects that will be spent for those projects, and then this would show where we need to find additional college funds through our reserves, accumulated fund balance, to pay off those projects, those expected projects in the various areas. As I said, the board packet has a detailed list of the projects that we are expected to put into the budget for the upcoming year. Like with the budget, we are setting the overall capacity that's the maximum the college can spend. It does not require us to spend money on some of these projects. So where we have a project that might not have been fully approved by the board, we would put budget aside for that, but then that might come back to the board for approval before we do that project. So if the board decided not to do a particular project, that money then wouldn't be spent and we'd go back into reserves to go into the capital budget in an upcoming year. With that, I will pause and ask if the board has any questions about the capital budget. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any questions? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: So I was having a little hard time reading your PowerPoint but I have my list here. Can you remind us, if we do this (indiscernible), what is our reserves that remain in terms of, is it 90-day spend in reserves remaining even after we get through this traunch? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah, what we have -- it's in the other presentation. Right now our estimate for what the reserve we have on hand are about 200 million. The ratio that we have, and it's a very conservative measure, is a 75% threshold of what the general fund budget, general and designated fund budgets are. What we do is we set aside a reserve and we say we want to have at least 75% of what our general operating expenses would be for the upcoming year. It's a really conservative measure. Another way to think about it is it would be enough money, if we had no other revenues, you could run for nine months. But again, that's not how it would ever play out in that kind of an emergency situation. If we fall below that threshold, if the board were to approve projects that dropped us below that threshold, what it triggers is that in the budget process, if we did that this year and overcommitted and say we didn't have revenues coming in over the course of the year like we are expecting in the budget, and we drop below that threshold, what that would trigger is that I would, at the next budget process next year, I'd have to come forward to you with a budget plan for how we will get back to that threshold, that 75% threshold. It triggers an automated process for us to say here is our plan for how we are going to get back to that healthy level. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: So this is a great list. I appreciate this. Is it prioritized in any way? >> DR. DAVID BEA: I don't know exactly how the priority came together. It's sort of in order. I'm looking at the priorities. It's in order of the sponsoring division. You can see that the ones that are listed is ongoing. Those are more like what you'd consider to be life cycle, deferred maintenance, regular and routine type projects. That's where those things are identified as ongoing. Those are things that we have money set aside in capital budget just about every year. As you go down, if they are not listed with an ongoing flag, those are more like one-time equipment expenses. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other questions? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Dr. Bea, I have a question on -- I know that we are increasing the tuition. So I don't know if it's possible if you could give us the information on -- I know you said, you projected how much that increase would be, and specifically it was geared towards student services. I, as a board member, want to make sure that that money is only going to student services and not for all these other projects or for reserves. Can you provide that for us? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Right. Definitely will provide follow-up and we'd be happy to do that during the course of the year as we see what the expenditures are for those. What those funds were intended to be used for continuing the laptop program, the hotspot lending program, those two programs, technical support for staff to keep that program up and running, and some of the other support for student success classes. So there is no question that the $2 which generates, it was about $750,000 generates the money that actually doesn't fully support all of those needs but will help integrate way toward meeting those needs, and the money from tuition will be used for those purposes. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: As long as you report on that and you can show -- >> DR. DAVID BEA: Be happy to. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Dr. Bea, could you just remind us, are these items in or out of the expenditure limit? >> DR. DAVID BEA: It is a combination. Some of these would be within expenditure limitation; some would be out. It depends on if it's a purchase of a major capital facility or land would be outside of expenditure limitation, because that's a specific exclusion. If it's equipment, just purchasing normal-type equipment, computing equipment, that sort of thing, because there is a list that has money for that, that would be within expenditure limitation. The reason that we identified that as part of the slide is that that as we go through, we have accumulated for some of these projects also expenditure limit capacity that we can use for that, but it's something we have to attend to going forward. The reality right now is because of the passage of 481, we increased our expenditure limitation capacity sufficiently that it's not too much of a worry right now. If it gets to be a worry, we will start doing what we were doing a few years ago, which is lease purchasing equipment, things like that. But at this point it's not something that we need to worry too much about. It's something in the next few years, more like a five-years-out kind of a thing. But we built enough capacity that it shouldn't be a problem and won't be a problem if enrollment grows again. If it goes anywhere back to where it was, we shouldn't have to worry about expenditure limitation for the foreseeable future. If enrollment stays where it currently is at, we will be talking about it in about four or five years. We have strategies that we will employ to deal with that. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I was just trying to understand what was just discussed. Mr. Clinco said something about the expenditure limitation. Am I understanding that the increase in tuition, that if we don't have the students, we would not meet the expenditure limitations but -- right now we are okay, so then that money, that tuition increase would not go to us? I'm just a little confused. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Not related to tuition. So expenditure limitation puts a limit on what your expenses are that you're allowed to spend, and it's tied to your enrollment. The formula is based on your enrollment in comparison to a base-year enrollment. So if enrollment grows from where it's at currently, our expenditure limitation will grow also. It grows with inflation and it grows with enrollment growth. If enrollment stays where it's currently at, what will happen is if our expenses continue to grow as they would normally grow, then in five years' time, we might have a conversation about expenditure limitation again, but again, there are some strategies that we can employ. We will be talking about that, I will talk about that when we get to the budget discussion, because when we are talking about the three-year budget plan, that's where expenditure limitation also comes back into play. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay, I've got it. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other questions? Discussion? With that, thank you so much, Dr. Bea, for that explanation. With that, all those in favor of approving action item 5.1, please signify by saying aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Those disapproving? Signify by saying nay? Abstentions? 5.1. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Capital budget, correct? Clarification, Chair Ripley, after this I know that we are going to talk about the 4.1. I exited out because I needed to... >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: We are going line item by line item, 5.1 and then -- >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: 4.1. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Right. We just did 5.1. Next we will vote on 5.2. Then 4.1 and then 4.14. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Okay. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: We need to close this one out. Again, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I hear four ayes. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: No. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I would say no as well. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: To be clear, we have three ayes and two nos. The action item 5.1 passes. Next is 5.2. Publication of fiscal year 2023 proposed budget in preparation for the June 2022 public hearing and special board meeting to adopt the budget and set property tax rates and levies. Mr. Silvyn, can you please read the action item. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you. So let me provide a little bit of context. What I'm going to read is slightly different than what's in your packet. Originally we were expecting that this actual hearing on the budget and the vote would take place at the June 8 meeting. There is an issue with scheduling for all board members, and we are trying to make sure we have a date when participation by all board members is not an issue. I'd like to read a substitute recommendation that gives us a little bit of flexibility while we figure out what's going to be the best date to deal with this issue. If I might, here is what I'm proposing as the recommendation. The chancellor recommends the Governing Board approve publication in accordance with statutory requirements of the fiscal year 2023 budget in the Arizona Daily Star, preferably on May 18, 2022, and May 20, 25, and in any event no later than 15 days before and a second time no later than seven days before a public hearing and meeting to set property taxes and levies and to adopt the budget and conduct a public hearing and a special board meeting preferably on June 2, 2022, and in any event, no later than June 20, 2022, for the purpose of adopting the budget and setting property tax rates and levies. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any discussion? Dr. Dor�? >> DR. DOR�: Would you like any context from Dr. Bea or... >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Yes, I think we do need some context. >> DR. DOR�: Dr. Bea, would you please provide an overview of the proposed budget? >> DR. DAVID BEA: I'd be happy to. Chairperson Ripley, members of the board, Dr. Dor�, colleagues and guests. It's now my pleasure to get into the nuts and bolts of the proposed budget as a whole, which again, as we discussed a few minutes ago, it establishes the maximum spending capacity for the fiscal year. The college can go below these levels, but once the levels are set and approved, adopted by the board at the public hearing, the college cannot spend over that amount. So again, you want to establish the capacity for where the college might spend money or might need to spend money in the upcoming year, but it doesn't require you to do so. The way that the budget comes together every year, as you know, is through a series of conversations and board actions that occurred during the year. First of all, we have early preliminary discussions early in the fall or in the fall about where does the budget look like it's going. We have a couple of study sessions. We talk about what the priorities are that come up from the college's standpoint and get feedback from the board through a number of these conversations. Then the actions that start occurring are around setting tuition, which we set in March, the employee benefits discussions about what the premiums are going to be, the employee benefit structure, the costs that the college is going to incur for that. Then later on, what comes together is property tax information comes in from the county. We start learning a little bit more about the state budget and what potential funding we might get from the state. We fold all of those things together into this May budget presentation and the state budget form so that we can publish this information for the taxpayers to take a look at and the truth-in-taxation information if you are going to increase the tax rate. Publish that in the newspaper so we can have the public hearing, as Jeff Silvyn just mentioned, and the date maybe to be determined, but it will be early in June when we actually have the public hearing and then formally adopt the budget. Ideally it will be about early June. So as we have been discussing with the board, our priorities right now, and I just talked a little bit about the capital budget and the priority to continue and get those Centers of Excellence up and running, handle the necessary deferred maintenance, those kinds of things, fold that into the budget, and then with the operational budget, we have been talking about this for some time now, is really prioritizing employee compensation. Because of expenditure limitation, because of other challenges that we have had at the college, the state reducing the college's budget or the college's appropriations, things like that, that it's been some years going back quite a bit in time where we have been holding salaries very flat or giving very moderate increases that really don't keep pace, haven't been keeping pace with the cost of living. As a result of that, the college has been undergoing a class in compensation study with an external vendor that was referenced early. It has been going on for a while now because it is a very comprehensive study that basically the intent of that exercise is to look at every job that is at the college, every regular position that's at the college, identify what the most appropriate market comparison is for that position, and then ensure that we are paying our folks in these positions appropriately for the great work they do that's in line with market rates for those wages. It's a very comprehensive effort. It involves looking at all of the job classifications, job descriptions, the job families. And then being able to compare those to market comparisons outside. That's why it takes a long time to do that study. That's coming to the very end right now. We don't have the final results of that, but hopefully we will at the June board meeting. That is my goal is to get those scales in front of the board so that the board can approve those and we can make those take effect at the very beginning of the fiscal year. As mentioned earlier, we do have money set aside, and I'm going to talk about that as I go forward in the budget a little bit, but we do have reserves set aside and we do have a plan that if we don't get the scales approved by the board, and that goes into fall, that we will be able to make adjustments for salaries between so that if they take effect for July and then get adjusted with what the actual scale adjustments would be in the fall. But that is not the way that I am hoping to do this. I want to get this done in June so that it can more easily take place and more effectively take place in July. On top of that, the other priority we have really put into the budget is for adjunct faculty pay, and there was a reference to this by Mr. Mendoza earlier, that the college has been working with a representative adjunct faculty folks on setting up a new tier system where there will be two tiers of adjunct faculty pay. That will come to the board for formal approval in June. I can tell you that what it looks like right now and what we have put into the budget, because it's clearer right now than the class comp results are, so we have actually folded in what the expected costs of that tier program are going to be into this budget, which is that we are proposing to lift the tier 1 rate, which is what our current rate is, by about 3.4% up to $900 per credit hour. And then the tier 2, those would be for faculty who have taught for the college before for some number of terms and have gone through some professional development, that those qualifying faculty would be receiving a premium pay of 5% on top of that. So for those folks, the pay would be the 3.4% plus 5%, so it's about an 8%, roughly an 8% increase for the people who qualify for tier 2. We will talk to the board more about that in June with more specificity in terms of what qualifies someone for tier 2, but I'm giving you, I'm foreshadowing what that's going to be. We have folded the impact of that into these figures that you are going to see, but in terms of the class comp study, for the regular employees, we have reserved about $9 million for the impacts of that class comp study, so it shows up a little different for the adjunct faculty, will show up in adjunct faculty line. For the other employees, it won't show up in the employee lines in the budget, but I can assure you that it is reserved and will be available to address the class comp issues as we propose them to the board. Let me move forward. As Board Member Garcia just asked the question, the board approved in March a $2 per credit hour increase for tuition. That is going to support the continuation of and actually the ongoing and regular, the permanently providing student success courses at no cost. Then the other thing that we also committed to doing is to continue the student lending program for computers and for hotspots for students to be able to borrow equipment from the college. Funding in the budget will go to replacing lost or damaged equipment, and so that is where the tuition dollars will go. We will be happy to show the board that the expenditures for those different programs are going to greatly exceed the $2 in tuition, but we will follow up with the board on those reports. In order to generate revenue, we have talked with the board about potentially tapping into our tax base. I'm going to go into the detailed slide about the tax base information. The growth from existing property, that is properties that are new to the tax rolls, that generates about $2 million for the college in the upcoming budget. So without doing a tax increase we would get an additional $2 million of revenue year over year. And increasing the tax levy by 4% would generate another $5 million. Again, I will get into the details of that in a second and what the implications are for folks are in just a second. We did fold in some additional expectations in terms of state appropriations for STEM-based programs, and the state estimates for what the additional money from Prop 207 will be coming in. The biggest thing that will stick out in the budget and in the charts that are upcoming is the reduction of federal aid in terms of the higher ed relief funds, the COVID relief funds that both supported direct aid to students but also provided institutional support that we used both to do a number of the things we just talked about with the tuition that we are now covering with tuition, but also covered additional capital outlay for improving our Wi-Fi infrastructure, which we are in the process of upgrading to Wi-Fi 6, which will be very noticeable to folks around the campuses, and then putting up different safety and security-related things, COVID-related pieces of equipment throughout the college. That funding is now going away, so you will see that in the budget where this big federal funds from last year are shrinking dramatically. Again, that was anticipated because we knew that that wasn't going to be an ongoing source of funding. As I mentioned, we have reserved and it is to be determined in terms of exactly how the money gets allocated, but approximately $9 million for salaries and wages for our regular employees. Based on what the overall costs are for regular employees, that translates, it would translate into probably on average 7% increase if we allocated all of it out. One of the things that we will be talking about is reserving some of the money for, when we do the class comp study, there is going to be an appeal process. So people will be placed into jobs based on the descriptions, the job descriptions for that individual, but we are going to have an appeal process if someone thinks their job got categorized incorrectly, because we have more than a thousand jobs that we are tracking on and we went one by one to make sure they are accurate, there will be examples where people think their jobs aren't coded correctly. We want to reserve a little bit of money in the case where those appeals go through, and then we end up reclassifying those jobs up or that we have money set aside in the budget for it. The $9 million won't be immediately allocated, but a good portion of it will be within the class comp structure. First goal is going to be placing people as appropriately as possible into the class comp structure. The second goal is then confirming that no one is making less money than they currently make. That would be their base pay plus they are currently getting a thousand dollars for the year. That was something we did this last year. So it would be either base pay plus the thousand dollars is what we will be comparing to. We will ensure no one is making less than that. Then for those that after we do that test are flat, we will be looking at doing some kind of a lift to those folks so that everybody sees some kind of a positive lift in this upcoming year. The bigger -- there will be a disproportionate or differential impact for people, those whose jobs are classified or that the market indicates that they have been paid below market, will be slotted for bigger than average increases and then some of course will be more on that lower level. What we are going to try to do is come up with a structure where everybody gets some kind of an increase in this upcoming year. Definitely no one will make less than they make currently >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Could you tell us, the $9 million, as it's conceived through this class comp study, what do you think the average increase -- I know, as you just articulated, some people are already at the ceiling, some people are not. $9 million spread across, on average, what do you anticipate the increase being? >> DR. DAVID BEA: The average will be something like around 7% if we allocate out the healthy side of that have $9 million. Again, that's what we are looking to do. That 9 million has to cover fringe benefits that are associated with the wages as well. It's not all going to be directly to salaries, but a good portion of it, the majority of it will be, and again, average increase will be probably in the range of 7%. And we will give that information to the board when we bring those class comp structures to the board >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: In addition to the 7%, we are also talking about the 2% cost of living increase. >> DR. DAVID BEA: When I'm saying the 7%, that would include that 2%. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: That's inclusive. So we are looking at about 5% plus -- that's still enormous, a 7% increase on average. Some people, because as you just said, some people get significantly more and some people will get less but you are still looking at how to implement the steps? We are talking about a significant increase in payroll across the board this year. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Absolutely. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Again, I just want to be very clear about my appreciation to your team and everyone's patience on the class comp study. We know it's taken a lot of time, but I think the proof is in the pudding. I think when we are talking about this type of significant increase, which the board has articulated very clearly this year, it's something that was a high priority and we have certainly heard from our employees it's a high priority, I mean, this really goes a long way. When you add this to our very rich benefits, this is a significant increase. I'm really appreciative and glad to see this in the proposed budget. Thank you. Finally, could you just talk a little bit about, very briefly, about performance-based pay moving forward? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah. We will talk with the board more about that when we get to the actual structures and how the structures are set up. But the board has indicated an interest in having performance-based pay be part of the new class comp structures. Those structures will recognize years of experience in the job. That will be one of the primary measures of how someone gets placed. It's not only what the specific job duties entail, then getting placed in a grade, and then having recognition for the years of experience in the actual job. Then the other component that will be factored into it will be the ability to have performance-based pay. We will talk with the board more when we bring that specific item to the board about what that looks like in the short term and then in the longer term. That's going to be something that's going to take -- it won't be implemented with full performance-based pay certainly on day one. That's something that's going to have to happen through some discussions and some policy language clarifications. But there will be the capacity built in to do performance-based pay. The ability to do performance-based pay will be within the structures. The other component that will likely be in there is if someone has a performance problem is they would be slotted as not being eligible to get the same increase if they are on a performance plan, for example. So on the negative side, it's a little bit easier to manage not giving increases to folks who are on performance plans who are having performance problems. What we are going to have to work through is some of the specificity related to performance-based pay supplements, like what you would give the enhanced pay for really high-performing employees. We do want to have the capacity. It will be built into the structures, the ability to do that. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: You only have a few more minutes. Can you perhaps wrap this up, and we can do some further discussion? >> DR. DAVID BEA: I can. Would be happy to. I do want to take a second, because one of the most important things we are talking about here is setting up the truth-in-taxation language and getting -- this is one of the decision points for the board is to approve us doing a truth-in-taxation process where we would be increasing the tax levy by 4%. I just want to do a quick -- then I will shoot through the rest of it real quick after that, but this one to me is really important to the constituents out there. What we are proposing is that the levy neutral, that is just the growth in new property, would set the tax rate at 1.2383. So what that means for a $100,000 property is that that property would be paying $123.83 to the college for the year. What we are recommending or proposing to the board here tonight is to increase that by 4%, which gets us halfway, about halfway, sort phases in getting back to our levy maximum because we have not increased the levy the last two years. So this would be going halfway to our levy max. That would increase the tax rate to 1.2878. Again, for a $100,000 property, that's $128.78. It's about a $5 increase for the year for a property of $100,000. That's what the board would be, again, and we have to have a public hearing, go through a special truth-in-taxation process, we put information about that in the board packet. And we would then formally do that process at that June meeting. That generates, that $5 for that $100,000 property, because we have about $10 billion of assessed property value in Pima County, that has a significant impact and generates an additional $5 million. So it's really important to the college. It would enable us to do what we are talking about with the class comp study. It's consistent with what we talked about with the board in prior meetings. The rest of it, we have provided this information to the board. So that I can leave time for questions, if the board has any, the overall budget is shrinking from year over year. That's largely because of what I said, federal funds coming in are shrinking. You can see also that the property tax revenue is growing proportionately. That's something we'll talk, when we talk about the three-year plan, a bit more about the sustainability of this and what our ultimate goal is over the long term. But that at this point, with the priorities, with the fact that we haven't increased the tax levy for the last couple of years with the priority to really do the market-connected salary adjustments we are talking about, it is a good time for us to do that and recognize the value of what work that our employees are doing. Again, this chart shows how the budget will be allocated. Again, I mention really, really quickly this does not include the money we are talking about with the class comp reserve. That would be located up here in the reserve in that $26.4 million reserve, because it's not allocated specifically to a particular category. So it's an unallocated reserve. Once we identify how that goes in, then we would classify that out to the various employee groups. But as I mentioned, the adjunct faculty line does include the adjustment for the tier program that we are talking about. I'm going to skip through that. This is the slide I referenced in the capital budget where it shows where our current reserves are, and I mentioned it was somewhere close to $200 million. Our target threshold, based on the calculation, is around 150 million, so we are very healthy compared to our target threshold. But this will start coming down by design, as we have allocated and we're doing some of these capital projects that the board has approved, the Allied Health, funding it out of reserves. We will expect those reserve monies to flatten out, that growth will flatten out and maybe shrink a little bit in the coming couple of years. Budget calendar, we have talked about that. What we have talked about with the board is building a three-year plan. Because we don't have the specific class comp information and because that has ongoing obligation because the new structure has built in increases that are tied to people's years of experience, what we want to do is come back in the fall and do a real three-year comprehensive review that will also set us up really well for the next year. The other thing it will do is we will be able to look at what fall enrollment looks like. So right now summer and fall look really healthy. There is actually good growth for the first time in a long time. We want to be able to fold that into the three-year outlook and then talk about what does it mean now with the projections going forward in terms of expenditure limitation and the sustainability of the operating funds, right? The right kind of balance between tuition and property taxes going forward and then creating a structure that is sustainable with our ongoing revenue streams. I think, with that, I think I can shoot through. This is what I talked about in terms of increasing the levy. It gets us halfway to our levy max. That would give us in fiscal year '24 another ability to move up to another 4% in tax growth next year, and then we'd be at our max, and then it will be 2% thereafter. So we have to plan for that reality in the future. These are just some of the things that we have talked about with the board in terms of expenditure priorities. Things we are looking at. Metrics that we will talk about with that three-year planning process that if enrollment does not grow, that we are going to want to look at staff size and some other metrics related to, that are really, with our enrollment being as low as they are, are misaligned, the number of staff we have are misaligned with the number of students we presently have. But again, we took a big hit with COVID and it looks like, and fingers crossed here, looks like there is some recovery happening. It will be I think really good to have that conversation in detail in the fall. With that, I will ask if the board has any additional questions related to the overall budget. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you very much, Dr. Bea, for that very thorough explanation. We did receive a lot of information in board docs. We have two members on the board that are on the finance committee, but it always helps to get an in-depth overview in public so everyone understands. Also, just to be sure, this is, the action item that we are voting on is to publish this budget, we won't be voting on it till the next meeting, which Mr. Silvyn illustrated. With that, I'd like to open up if there are any questions or discussion from the board. Without any discussion, no discussion, thank you. I would like to take a vote. All those in favor of publishing this draft budget, please signify by saying aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: The action passes unanimously 5 to 0. Thank you very much, Dr. Bea and Mr. Silvyn. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: We go back to the next items which were moved from consent, the first one, 4.4, delegating authority to execute a contract for architectural and engineering design services for the development of the Downtown Campus hotel properties. Mr. Silvyn, can you read a description? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Yes, I'd be glad to, Chair Ripley. The chancellor recommends the Governing Board authorize the chancellor or designee to execute a contract with a successful respondent of the request for qualifications for architectural and engineering services to design and document the hotel properties development project. The chancellor shall report the results of the selection process to the Governing Board. Total costs are not expected to exceed $1.875 million. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: The motion has been made and seconded. I open this up for Dr. Dor�'s discussion. Thank you. >> DR. DOR�: What I will ask is for Dr. Bea to give a little bit more information. You have a lot of the information there in your packet, but could you just, Dave, if you'd let the board know what exactly they are going to be approving. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah, so this is the first phase of identifying what the college really wants to do ideally with the properties, the hotel properties that the college has, The Tucson Inn, The Copper Cactus, and The Frontier Inn property. We provided the board a presentation. It was I think almost, actually a little less than a year ago, and talked about the potential uses for those facilities and the range of things we'd like to do with those facilities. This is actually selecting an architect to start doing the design and conceptual work so that we can come back to the board and say here are the options, here are some different drawings and some different examples of how we could use the property so that the board can then make the decision. Again, this isn't identifying what's going to happen there specifically. It's hiring an architect to do some design work to get that process up and running. >> DR. DOR�: And just to be clear, if I may, so no one has worked with the faculty and the staff yet. So in terms of the actual programmattic planning with an architect. Once the architect comes on board, then we begin that whole kickoff process where they work with the users. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for that description. Any questions or discussion? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. You know, my objection for spending money on this at this point in time is the fact that we are at a very high inflation rate right now. Materials are at an all-time high. Labor is short. And with all the projects that the college is doing at this point in time, I don't think that it's appropriate for us to be spending this money. I think we can wait to do this. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you, Board Member Garcia. Any other discussion? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I echo Mrs. Garcia's comments. As mentioned, I think we can, as she mentioned, I think we can wait, as well. As we all know and that's one of the things that Mr. Bea mentioned, reference to the low enrollment that we have, but there is a high inflation right now. I don't think it's the time. I think if we are going to be spending the tax dollars money from the people, I think it should be more cost efficient and cost-effective as well, as what we have all mentioned. We have to be real selective but more important be responsible reference to the monies at this times. I think those properties, as mentioned a while ago, I think they could wait and they should wait. I just was reading part of the capital, the one that we were looking at, capital properties, or whatever, too. I know that we saw a lot of deferments in reference to the safety for the college. Those should be priorities and not deferred. Right now I think it's not the right time with the high inflation in reference to the high cost. As I mentioned, we all have to be real responsible to the community to be cost-effective, cost-efficient. I say let's wait for it. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I just wanted to add one more thing, I'm sorry. The other thing too is what they are proposing to be used for is it's not a priority at this point in time. It really is not a priority. Our priority is to get the Centers of Excellence built and get the enrollments in. You know, that's just my point. And also, with the capacity that we have, excess capacity throughout, we haven't even looked at, and here we are going to go and do something else? I'm sorry. That's my opinion. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Board Member Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Just a point of clarification for those who still may be listening, this is to hire an architectural and engineering firm to begin discussions with programming and design of future buildings. It has nothing to do with building anything right now. It has to do with planning. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: It's expense. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: It is an expense, and it's a forward-looking investment in our future, which I fully support. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I think, for clarity, what Dr. Hay was trying to say is it's for the architect and not construction. So in reference to inflation, that has nothing to do with it. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: It's about spending money. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Construction would, but the architect is a different thing. Go ahead, Board Member Clinco. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Chair Ripley. I think it's important to note that we have already voted to move this item forward. We collectively met as a board. We discussed it at numerous meetings. Then we voted to move forward. And still there is an unwillingness to get behind the board action from two members of our board, and I think it's really a concern because it's inconsistent with the criteria spelled out in the HLC and our duty as a board to operate as a board, because once we have made a decision, we have to get behind the decision. This continual objection to items that you simply philosophically do not believe in and unwillingness to bring alternatives is really frankly disingenuous, and it continues to undermine the direction and the vision and the momentum that this institution is moving. Frankly, the items that we heard, the programmattic approaches, are key to the success of our students and to supporting our faculty and to enriching this college's ability to operate in a 21st Century environment. With that, I'd call for a vote >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I just wanted to add that just to be effective, here we are at 8:20, and this would have been better for a wider discussion, because it was on the consent agenda, meaning it was brought forward for approval, and we were to vote under consent today at the regular meeting. Perhaps in the future bring these concerns up a little bit sooner and we could have a wider discussion or another study session, because we got the board docs on Friday and we are just now hearing of it today. I hear your concerns, but again, I think it would take a little bit longer for Dr. Bea, Dr. Dor�, perhaps the chancellor when he returns, to actually explain, you know, what we are doing in terms of those hotels, which we have done already but from a bigger picture. But again, if inflation is the argument, that's really not what we are doing here. It's just hiring the architect to plan, because we do need to go forward with those properties. We have all agreed as a board that this is something we are going to do, and so they can't just sit there. We need to somehow go forward and move and make those profitable for the college and for students to be able to use. There are some great ideas for their use and you know what they are. And that's already been discussed. Any other comments? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: The question has been called. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Excuse me? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: The question has been called. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Okay. All those in favor of passing 4.4, please signify by saying aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Nay. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Nay. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: The action passes 3 to 0. Last action item is 4.14. It was moved from consent to action, rate approval for Acadeum partnership. Mr. Silvyn, can you please read the description. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Certainly. Just one quick correction of the record. The last item was approved 3 to 2, not 3 to 0. The vote will reflect that in the record. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Sorry, it's late. I meant 3 to 2, yeah. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: So the recommendation for this item is as follows. The chancellor recommends the Governing Board authorize the chancellor or designee to execute a master services agreement with Acadeum College Consortium, Inc., to include an addendum agreement for League for Innovation Online Course Share. Further, the chancellor recommends the Governing Board authorize setting a flat rate equal to 150% of in-state resident tuition for Acadeum Course Share students. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So moved. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Second. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Motion to move and second. Dr. Dor�? >> DR. DOR�: Yes, I'm going to ask Dr. Michael Amick if he could please give us a little background on this. >> MICHAEL AMICK: Thank you so much. Thank you, board members, and Dr. David Dor� and those listening. Some of you may know Dr. Rufus Glasper as the former Maricopa chancellor for the community college system up there. He is now the League of Innovation president and CEO. League of Innovations is a national entity supporting innovation in community colleges. He has spearheaded a program to be a national online course seat sharing consortium. Acadeum is the entity charged with creating and implementing that. What this agreement does is allow us, Pima Community College, to put extra vacant seats in our online courses into this consortium, and other community colleges, or not just community colleges, private colleges and universities, they can allow their students to take that online course from us and it is transcripted onto the student's home institution where they are at. I want to give credit to our new permanent Dean Dr. Josie Milliken. The way she helps to explain this is like when an airline has extra seats, there are those entities that are helping find ways to fill those extra seats on the airplane, so that hopefully helps explain the first aspect of this agreement. The 150% tuition is placed there, there is some precedence with other agreements that we have made that we utilize the WICHE, the Western States of Higher Education, Arizona is one of the 16 states in that agreement. Any student in those 15 other states outside of Arizona already have this benefit of instead of the out-of-state tuition they can employ the 150% state tuition. So that's a little bit of where that dollar amount came from. This board has approved that 150% tuition for other agreements that we have. The Pearson Accelerated Pathways Agreement is one such example. I hope that helps give a picture of this. I invite Dr. Morgan Phillips and Dr. Dave Bea to add any further comments they may have to help explain this. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any comments from Dr. Bea or Dr. Phillips? Okay. I'd like to open up for discussion or questions. Board Member Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, I'd like to know does this mean all online courses would then be available, vacant seats, as you said? >> MICHAEL AMICK: No, it would not be all online courses. It would only be a course that we submitted to the consortium. So, for example, what they recommend is that we start by submitting 20 to 25 different online courses and indicating the number of seats that would be available. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: We would get a return of 150% of the tuition? Is that correct? >> MICHAEL AMICK: That is what the college that is putting the student in our course would pay, but then Acadeum does take a percentage of that cost. I believe it's 25%. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Is there some kind of a fee that we have to pay to be part of this? >> MICHAEL AMICK: That is correct. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: How much is it? You said it was 25% they would take from the tuition, but now I'm asking do we pay like, for example, a model we don't even know whether it's making a profit or not. So we don't even know how many students are enrolled, and here we go with another portal. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. I'd just like to know what the cost is going to be to the college, what our entire benefit will be, if we can project that. >> MICHAEL AMICK: Yeah, that is part of the documents that were submitted. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: It's in a table in the board documents. >> MICHAEL AMICK: Yes. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Dr. Dor�? >> DR. DOR�: Yes, Board Member Garcia, there is a table in your packet that has all of the costs, and then the net revenue to the college. >> MICHAEL AMICK: So I believe for the first two years, I believe it's actually the first three years, the cost is being held at approximately $12,000 per year to participate. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'm fine. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Any other questions? Discussion? Board Member Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: The Acadeum, the college consortium, it's incorporated in Delaware; is that correct? >> MICHAEL AMICK: I'm not familiar with where it's located. We have been working with the appointed representative out of Austin, Texas. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Okay. Any other questions? Any other discussion? With that, all those in favor of approving this action item, please signify by saying aye. (Ayes.) >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: No. The reason is, like I mentioned, my question was not answered, and second -- >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Point of order, Chair Ripley, discussion is completed and we have already voted on the item. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: I asked for discussion and there was none, so sorry. I mean, there was -- there was discussion. You said there was no more discussion, so we voted already. We voted for 4 to 1. So the item has been passed 4 to 1. Okay. With that -- >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Let me explain my vote, then. Can I explain my vote, Mr. Silvyn? >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: You have the floor, Board Member Gonzales. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Thank you. Like I mentioned, I did ask the question but it wasn't answered. The only question is he said no, but reference for all of us, I'm glad that there was, it's for, but my question, on my behalf, just to elaborate, I don't feel I have the informed decision, cannot make an informed decision right now. Thank you. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Okay. Thank you for that. With that, we completed all the action items. Any requests for future agenda items at this time? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I would like to evaluate the legal counsel's position and also the chief of staff position. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: So for next board meeting, two of the agenda items would be to evaluate the counsel and the chief of staff positions? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Right, their responsibilities, you know, how they serve us. Just an explanation of whether it's something we should continue. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: You want their job description, basically? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: So that would be an agenda item? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: The chair can take that into consideration with the chancellor in the future >> MS. CATHERINE RIPLEY: Thank you for that. Any other requests for future agenda items? With that, this meeting is now adjourned. Thank you. (Adjournment at 8:36 p.m.) ********************************************* DISCLAIMER: THIS CART FILE WAS PRODUCED FOR COMMUNICATION ACCESS AS AN ADA ACCOMMODATION AND MAY NOT BE 100% VERBATIM. THIS IS A DRAFT FILE AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. IT IS SCAN-EDITED ONLY, AS PER CART INDUSTRY STANDARDS, AND MAY CONTAIN SOME PHONETICALLY REPRESENTED WORDS, INCORRECT SPELLINGS, TRANSMISSION ERRORS, AND STENOTYPE SYMBOLS OR NONSENSICAL WORDS. THIS IS NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT AND MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED, PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. 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