Southeastern Illinois College Board of Trustees met Tuesday, March 29.
Here are the minutes as provided by Southeastern Illinois College:
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
REGULAR MEETING
SOUTHEASTERN ILLINOIS COLLEGE
3575 COLLEGE ROAD; HARRISBURG, IL 62946
MARCH 29, 2016
The Southeastern Illinois College Board of Trustees held its regular meeting on Tuesday, March 22, 2016, at 6:00 pm in the Rodney J. Brenner Board Room. On roll call, the following members were present: David Dennison, Debbie Hughes, Jim Ellis, Dr. Pat York, and Clinton Murphy, student trustee. After roll call: Blake Bradley. Absent: Dr. Frank Barbre, and Richard Morgan.
Also present were: Dr. Jonah Rice, Dr. Dana Keating, Gina Sirach, Dr. Karen Weiss, Chad Flannery, David Wright, Karla Lewis, Dr. Diane King and early childhood education student Haley, Bridget Fitzpatrick, and Barbara Potter.
Dr. York welcomed guests and allowed a time for comment. There were no comments from the audience.
Bridget Fitzpatrick of Harrisburg, Illinois, was sworn in as the 2016-17 Student Trustee.
Reports
Mr. Jim Ellis, ICCTA Representative, reported The ICCTA Board of Representatives took the following actions at its March 12, 2016 meeting at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois: Discussed Senate Bill 2243, which would allow Illinois community colleges to offer a bachelor’s degree in nursing, subject program approval by the IllinoisCommunity College Board and the Illinois Board of Higher Education.The issue was referred to ICCTA’s Baccalaureate
Degree Study Committee for consideration; Authorized ICCTA President Andrew Bollman to send a letter to U.S. Senators Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk thanking them for their support of community colleges and opposing the inclusion of community colleges in the proposed student debt ‘risk-sharing’ provision of the Higher Education Act reauthorization; Urged trustees to tell their legislators about the impact of Illinois’s budget impasse on local colleges and students. Funding issues will be the top priority at ICCTA’s May 4 Lobby Day in Springfield;
Were informed that Trustee Roundtable participants discussed the MonetaryAward Program , K-12 and dual credit initiatives, and how the lack of state funding is affecting community colleges; Learned that the Illinois Community College Board’s Student Advisory Committee gathered 8,000 signatures and 300 letters in support of MAP grant funding this spring. Students will shift their focus to operational funding for community colleges during Student Advocacy Day on April 20; Heard that ICCTA continues to explore ways to contain costs at its events, including the possibility of broadcasting Board of Representatives meetings online.
Dr. Rice reported on the following items: Brick Campaign: He noted this joint effort was a successful launch and to date we are progressing well; PHS Work and Student Government: SIC will match dollar for dollar with the SIC Student Government (their fees) to renovate the student center ceiling and accompanying areas as PHS work will not cover that. We appreciate the SIC SG’s willingness to help us improve that area; Strategic Planning: We are progressing well on the project. We will bring to the Board in May the institutional initiatives that the broad-based committee will determine based on subcommittee work and review; Legislative Update/Budget Impasse Update; VPAC and Insurance Meeting: I coordinated a meeting with Bill Ghent, Steve Williams, our VPAC staff, and HHS to discuss a concern Mr. Ghent informed me and Superintendent Gouch regarding a flying system HHS is using in our theatre. All has been resolved; SBA Director Visit: Lori Cox and I met with the SBA Director Bob Steiner to discuss SBD in the region. It was a fruitful meeting with much verbal support for our work; Federal Credit Hour Constraints: It came to my attention that it had been communicated to others that SIC is doing more paper work than we should as, the example given, RLC does not require absence reports on make-up work to meet Federal guidelines. I can assure the Board that SIC does not misinterpret or has “gone overboard” with this paper work. In fact, SIC modeled our program after Rend Lake’s program. Furthermore, President Wilkerson and I talk frequently and he informed me that as of early March, RLC had 57 forms on file to demonstrate learning was accomplished even though absences occurred. He stated to me, “We require our faculty to fill it [absence make up work] out as well.” He said maybe some of his new faculty don’t know what to do yet and perhaps misinformed others. SIC and RLC modeled much of our work after Rock Valley College. In essence, we’re all working on the same mandate and are getting there in similar fashion. Federal compliance is a requirement, no matter the pain it causes. The main concern from the Federal Government is: absences = lost learning and thus wasted funds from Washington on lost education; DOC Payback Status: We are monitoring at present. We will NOT send in a payment until the State has a budget. If there is no budget for FY 16, we were told by the ICCB that we may renegotiate the December payment since other colleges who must pay back due to various reasons have not had their reimbursements “garnished”; SICCM: We are monitoring cash flow and the possible suspension of a negotiated pay back or use of line of credit. SICCM may run out of cash around New Year’s Day. We will entertain how much cash SICCM should have on hand in the future with certain conditions. We will vote on terminating services with the ICCB on ESL since there is no contract, their reserve fund expires soon, and most of SICCM members believe that we cannot use local taxpayer funds to support ESL, myself included. I cannot vote for a continuation of services at ESL. I suspect there will be some political fall out on this measure.
Logan proposed having dental hygiene as a SICCM program. The numbers for colleges in that area are woefully small, so some of us have already said no. I suspect this proposal will fail, especially since Logan couldn’t make it a go and cut it recently; Budget Message for FY 16: I communicated to staff to share with their budget officers the following: please communicate to your budget officers that we cannot practice a “spend down” near the end of the term as in the past. We have no money in the budget for such practice and are using reserves to get through the semester without State support. I am implementing what we call a “soft freeze” on that practice. Please continue to be prudent and conservative. Purchases for “needs” not “wants” should be your measure as you process purchases requisitions. I thank you for your diligence in keeping SIC in a stronger position than some as we all weather this storm; Budget Process for FY 17: We have begun this process with our regular open hearings by functional unit; Rent Waived for WSBDC: Due to increased economic hardship and lack of funding in the state of Illinois, First Mid-Illinois Bank and Trust has implemented a waiver on all rent paid by the Workforce and Illinois Small Business Development Center at their Harrisburg location. This $1,000 monthly savings will continue until there is a state budget in place. In their continued efforts to assist Southeastern Illinois College and the Illinois Small Business Center, First Mid-Illinois Bank and Trust has further agreed to lower the rent once an Illinois state budget is in place. This new rent will save the center $6,000, allowing those funds to be used to help with economic development initiatives in the area; Pension Liability: Our districts share of the state’s net pension liability is $38,071,681.54 per our last audit. We were not required to show that on our financial statements since the state is obligated to pay. Our pension expense for last year was $2,883,355.58. As of now we report as income for state paying and expense for us with zero effect on bottom line; Missouri Baptist and CJ: I will have a meeting with MB and RLC about a CJ program MB has on RLC’s campus now. There is interest in making this a 2-way interactive program with us; SICF Bow Fishing Tournament is set! More details will be forthcoming.
Student trustee Clinton Murphy reported on student fundraising and activities.
The administrative cabinet presented brief reports.
Consent Agenda
A motion was made by Mr. Bradley and seconded by Mr. Dennison to approve the consent agenda which included the February 16, 2016 regular and closed session minutes, destroying tapes of the September 2014 closed session, the Treasurer’s report and the February bills which totaled $2,461,658.31 that included $584,351.26 in payroll.
On roll call the following members voted:
Aye Nay
Mr. Dennison
Mr. Bradley
Ms. Hughes
Mr. Ellis
Dr. York
Mr. Murphy, Advisory Vote
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
Action Items
A motion was made by Mr. Ellis seconded by Mr. Bradley that the Board of Trustees approve the budget transfer requests as presented.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Ms. Hughes seconded by Mr. Bradley that the Board of Trustees approve to adopt board policy 8004 Investment of Funds revisions.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Mr. Ellis seconded by Ms. Hughes that the Board of Trustees approve a Board Resolution to authorize the College Treasurer to transfer up to the sum of Three Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($3,500,000) from the Working Cash Fund to the Education Fund or the Operations and Maintenance Fund as required during Fiscal Year 2017 ending June 30, 2017 to meet the obligations of Southeastern Illinois Community College District #533. The Working Cash Fund will be reimbursed by the anticipated receipt from the state of Illinois for payments of unrestricted Base Operating and Equalization Grants for FY 2016 and FY 2017.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Mr. Dennison seconded by Mr. Bradley that the Board of Trustees approve a financial efficiency plan for the adult education program.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Mr. Bradley seconded by Ms. Hughes that the Board of Trustees table Action Items “Financial Efficiency: Funding and Anticipated Reorganization of WSBDC” and “Financial Efficiency: Reorganize Perkins Grant.”
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Mr. Ellis seconded by Mr. Bradley that the Board of Trustees approve a financial efficiency plan to reorganize scholarships.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Mr. Bradley seconded by Ms. Hughes that the Board of Trustees approve a financial efficiency plan to suspend the handgun team.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Ms. Hughes seconded by Mr. Ellis that the Board of Trustees approve the recommendations of the curriculum committee.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
A motion was made by Mr. Ellis seconded by Mr. Bradley that the Board of Trustees approve the chargeback requests received from Brandon Fleek to enroll in the Auto Mechanic curriculum at Frontier Community College for the 2016-17 academic year and Emilie Rose Walker to enroll in the Radiography Tech curriculum at Olney Central College.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
Non-Action Items
In Non-Action items, a financial efficiency report was presented to the Board regarding the computer labs that contained the following: A careful review of available labs and the cost of upkeep of unit replacements and upgrades suggest efficiencies will result in some minor immediate cost savings and even more significant savings in the future to reduce costs and maintain vital services to students. With the wireless network now expanded to cover the entire campus, many students bring their own laptops and other devices to campus rather than utilizing our computer labs. We will review data with key faculty and staff with the anticipated result of reducing computers/labs. More strategic and collaborative scheduling can be done to accommodate student and instructional needs. While some labs and/or exams may need to be moved to different rooms, no significant learning will be hampered. A conservative estimate is that we have approximately 225 computers in instructional and open access labs, with a replacement cost of approximately $1000 per computer. However, IT works closely with faculty and staff to recycle computers, so not all of these computers were purchased new. We do get the most value out of every computer through our recycling process. Even with that being explained, it is obvious we spend significant dollars on computers labs. This review will closely analyze the most current data provided by IT and work with instructors to determine any consolidation, or savings through other means, that could be done to trim costs and more efficiently use our resources in this area. We will be working on this project over the next few weeks with a recommendation completed by sometime in April. We also expect that all labs need to charge for copies.
Also in non-action, Dr. Rice reported that due to the financial crisis that the State has placed Southeastern in, First Mid-Illinois Bank is waiving rent paid by the Workforce and Illinois Small Business Development Center at their Harrisburg location. This $1,000 monthly savings will continue until there is a state budget in place. In their continued efforts to assist Southeastern Illinois College and the Illinois Small Business Center, First Mid-Illinois Bank and Trust has further agreed to lower the rent once an Illinois state budget is in place. This new rent will save the center $6,000, allowing those funds to be used to help with economic development initiatives in the area.
Closed Session
A motion was made by Mr. Bradley seconded by Mr. Dennison to convene into closed session as allowed by the Open Meetings Act 5 ILCS 120/2, Section C, Sub-Section (1) appointment, employment, and compensation of specific employees, (2) negotiations, (5) acquisitions of property, (9) student discipline, and (11) litigation. The board went into closed session at 7:12 pm.
On roll call, the following members voted:
Aye Nay
Mr. Dennison
Mr. Bradley
Ms. Hughes
Mr. Ellis
Dr. York
Mr. Murphy, Advisory Vote
A motion was made by Mr. Bradley seconded by Ms. Hughes to reconvene into open session at 8:00 pm.
Personnel
A motion was made by Mr. Ellis and seconded by Mr. Bradley to approve all items under personnel.
Approved the recommendations for reemployment for 2016-17 for the president, administrative cabinet, administrative, staff and tenured personnel.
Approved the employment of Gary Jones as the part-time librarian effective March 1, 2016 at a salary of $33.00 per hour up to 20 hours per week, and the employment of Lori Sizemore as the Mary Jo Oldham Center for Child Study Coordinator effective April 18, 2016 at a salary of $40,000.
Accepted the resignations of CPR and Training Coordinator Debbie Hadfield effective March 31, 2016 and Art Kaczynski, weekend custodian, effective March 15, 2016.
Approved Jeremy Herlyn as a CTE Advisory Council member, and approved several adjunct faculty members.
All members voted aye. Motion carried.
Adjournment
There being no further business to discuss, Mr. Ellis made the motion to adjourn the meeting seconded by Mr. Bradley. All members voted aye. The meeting adjourned at 8:01 pm.
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