Friday Afternoon Updates

on
Let's close out the week with a set of Friday updates on a variety of topics.

  1. The LACCD Board of Trustees has passed a resolution that all campuses become sanctioned voting centers (to get to the resolution, click on this link.  Select the September 4 Board meeting at the bottom of the list of meetings.  When  you get to the front page of the agenda, scroll to the bottom of the page to  "View Agenda."  Click on that link, and you'll see the agenda outline on the left of your screen.  Scroll down to Section I.3.)  We currently do not have full information as to what said status will entail operationally.
  2. I've asked the WLAC Budget Committee to discuss and recommend a suggested minimum balance that we should maintain as a College to serve as a contingency fund in case of emergencies.  Right now, we have an ending balance of about $1.3 million, which reflects an infusion of about $500,000 into our budget from District funds.  My goal is two-prong.  First, we must develop a College policy that directs our budget discussions in terms of how much we can spend and how we need to maintain for unexpected costs (e.g., the College absorbed ~ $657,000 in step increases for employees.  Without our ending balance, we could not have done so and would most likely have ended the year in a deficit).  Second, we want to implement best practices in budget management so that West never ends the year in deficit.  Never.
  3. The District-wide website project--in which all nine College websites will be updated with new software, a more consistent appearance, and adherence to ADA standards regarding "viewability"--is proceeding aggressively, with a "boots on the ground" presence at the campus as early as November if the Board of Trustees approves the vendor contract at next week's Board meeting.
  4. Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with the leadership of the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Social Services.  In the presentation, they cited their regular involvement with meeting the needs of community college students.  When  I asked what they found to be the most oft-requested services by students, their answer was to the point:  "Finding food and finding a job."  A clear and concise directive, in my opinion, that supports our efforts in career preparation and wraparound services.
  5. The College Council has forwarded to me a recommendation from the Work Environment Committee that WLAC become a fully smoke-free campus.  This recommendation is in accord with a vote taken in May, 2018, by the California Community College Board of Governors "supporting the implementation of comprehensive smoke and tobacco-free policies at all 114 community college campuses" (Board minutes, May 14, 2018, Item 2.7).  The next step is the formulation of an ad hoc implementation task force.
  6. The application period for any candidates interested in the position of Vice President for Administrative Services closed September 13.  All applications are now being reviewed and "rated-in" by the Personnel Commission, who will then establish first-level interviews at the Educational Services Center.  We should receive a list of eligible candidates by the end of October, and then we will proceed aggressively with the campus interview process, which will be identical in nature to that used for our two previous vice president searches.

Finally, I'll close with a sobering thought.  We've been discussing the new Student-Centered Funding Formula as though it's always in the future.  Howeer, the students entering this fall are the students that we need to retain and graduate in the next three years in order to ensure that we're on stable ground when the "hold harmless" period ends in 2021-2022.