CMC President’s Board of Trustees recap and news for September 22, 2023

Copper Mountain College President Daren Otten shares a recap of the latest CMC Board of Trustees meeting and other CMC news for the week of August 15, 2023.

Listen to the podcast below:

Transcript:

Hi, folks, it’s Daren Otten, superintendent, President at Copper Mountain College. This is your monthly podcast associated with the Thursday, September 14, 2023 board meeting. All of the details are available on-board docs, along with all of the specific attachments. I welcome and encourage folks to go take a look at those as today. I want to talk primarily about a couple of highlights from last week’s meeting.

The big thing that I think everyone has been talking about is our 2023-2024 budget. It’s a pretty exciting time when we look at where our fund balance has ultimately gotten to over the last couple of years. This year, our adopted fund balance is 66.65 percent, and that is much higher than our board’s monthly minimum reserve, which is two months reserve, which is about 17 percent. But the reason that we are here is very intentional.

And again, I want to thank everyone for the hard work over the last several years that has been intentional on getting to the place where we have the resources to invest in the salary schedules and address the long term liabilities of the district. I do want to be clear that as we finished up the last academic year, two days before the end of the fiscal year, the state of California hit us with approximately a ten point eight percent deficit factor. And then subsequently with the budget that they adopted, they provided us another two point two nine percent deficit factor while they did provide us an 8.22 percent cola on this year’s budget, what you see there is still greater deficit factors.

The new money being put into specifically the colleges fund balance. Given the fact that we had done all the work coming into this time, we still, and proudly so and rightfully so, have been able to invest in the salary schedules of our CSA members, our faculty members, and now ultimately our management meet and confer group as well. It’s important that folks understand that this year’s adopted budget included the estimations around all of those salary schedule adjustments and is very, very accurate, or at least as accurate as we can ever make these things, given the moving sands that come from Sacramento.

What we do know, though, is that we’ve already been provided a health care employer increase that is expected to start in January of two percent. That is not currently modeled. So we know the budget will take that particular hit. But other than that, we are not aware of any expected expenses that we have not modeled into this year’s budget. It’s also important to note that we’re going to be in a situation where the hold harmless, which currently is based off our 17-18 year, is going to be benched in 24 25.

And this is good because it’s going to use our prior three years, including this year, even when we are on an emergency conditions. Now, while driving, our enrollment continues to be our priority. The goal and the intent here is that we have maximized our position to ensure our ongoing revenues. Having said that, until we grow past the enrollment level that we are funded for and the student success funding formula in which we’re funded for, we will not see any additional dollars coming to the college. But again, I want to thank everyone for the very hard work, very intentional work that it took to get to this place where we could invest in the salary schedules. I do want to specifically talk a little bit about the fact that we move towards parity. We’re not there.

We’ve got some work left to do. But it is important that we understand that we’ve moved the needle very significantly for our bargaining groups and our meet and confer groups towards their regional peers. And we will continue to work towards this as we move into the future. The other thing I want to mention about last week’s meeting is that the board affirmed their annual goals and my annual goals. And I want to appreciate everyone who took the time to inform and discuss and communicate whether it was at the April special study session, whether it was the July study session or subsequently last month as the board took feedback to develop these goals. I do want to note that for many folks, these goals often seem disconnected, perhaps even not necessarily, you know, organized in a way that people who see their daily jobs, what does it really mean?

What how does this all work? What is what do we do with these goals? Well, the board goals inform my goals. My goals ultimately inform my direct report goals. And the trickle down there, theoretically, is how we align everyone pulling on the rope in the same direction to ultimately achieve what the board has decided. It is critical that we do so. That’s ultimately what we use those goals for this next year. We will continue to have a process that will start in April and include folks who may not be around in the summer, such as many of the academic Senate members who wanted to participate in the conversation last year.

This year, we’re also going to be intentional and ensure that students have an opportunity to participate there, as that was one of the things that was brought to my attention that was missed. So this next year, again, we’ll start in April and I look forward to having those conversations. One of the other things I want to note here is some new employee introductions, Lakita Brown Campus Community Connections technician. Many of you know her as Kiki.

Michelle French registered nursing program instructor, Brian Benton, construction trades instructor, Theresa McCarty, registered nursing program instructor and the NRL coordinator, and JJ Santacruz are temporary, full time athletic coordinator and heads men’s basketball coach. Welcome to the college and appreciate all the work that they’re leaning into. And this is something that we’re going to be doing actually at the beginning of each one of our board meetings going forward is employee recognition, which might include, you know, new employee introductions or might include things like 10-year celebrations or other resolution celebrations.

Finally, I want to thank Leigh Ann Christiansen and the academic Senate for addressing the general education, philosophy and Institutional Learning Outcomes, catalog language and updates around these two particular items. The board conducted the first read. It’s a very good discussion and these are things that are very important for us and ultimately inform our catalog and inform our students. The hard work that the Senate put into this again affirmed what we all know and love about higher education. Yes, it’s important that you have a very specific major at some point, but the baseline of general education and the baseline of institutional learning outcomes are what we expect everyone leaves here with. And again, I want to thank the academic Senate for doing that work.

So that is your update from last week. And again, I encourage you to go take a look at the board docs for specifics or more information about any of these or other topics that were covered last week. Have a great month.