Board Report – April 2011

Congressional and White House officials brokered a last-minute deal on the FY 2011 budget late Friday evening, averting a government shutdown. The House and Senate passed a stopgap measure, which funds the government through Thursday of this week. Another piece of legislation will be passed this week to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year. The deal reportedly contains approximately $39 billion in spending reductions but is apparently absent of the most controversial policy riders. We'll have a better sense as to the local impact of the reductions sometime during the next week, once the full budget has been made available to the public. The good news for us is that the Pell grant has been retained at the current level. The summer Pell grant will be available this summer, but it won't be available after that. President Obama spoke today, and it sounds like everything is on the table except HeadStart and Pell.

In Salem, the legislative session passed the halfway point, and we are beginning to see significant movement in the budget process. The Ways and Means Education Subcommittee held public hearings for the community college budget March 22 - 24. Thank you to Tony, Susie and Pat for attending. Bob Baldwin and Rodger Gamblin also testified. On March 29, the Co-Chairs released their budget. It sets funding for the Community College Support Fund "near or above the Governor's recommended budget." The Co-Chairs budget increases K-12 to $5.7 billion and appropriates $1.666 billion for all the rest of education - Department of Education, community colleges, OUS, OHSU and the Student Assistance Commission - and leaves it up to the subcommittee to decide how to divide the money. While we have heard from some legislators and staff that there may be a placeholder in the budget for the CCSF somewhere between the Governor's $410 million and the OCCA ask of $425 million, we've also been cautioned by others that it will be very difficult to achieve an amount above the Governor's mark. The legislature is attempting to approve the K-12 budget this week, but it is unclear whether Governor Kitzhaber will sign the budget immediately or wait for work on the other education budgets to be completed first. The Co-Chairs' budget recommends leaving over $400 million in the ending fund balance for next year's session to allocate, but K-12 supporters are strongly urging legislators to add more to their budget. The governor met with community college presidents last week and said that if the reserves are to be tapped for K-12 it should be tapped for post secondary. He said that there needed to be a commitment to go no lower than his budget for post secondary.

Regarding the maintenance of effort that was created by the federal government, the state asked for a waiver of the maintenance effort for K-12. The federal government has denied the waiver for K-12. Hence, the state has to make up that money in this year, and it remains to be seen how they will deal with that.

Governor Kitzhaber testified before the Senate Ed committee on Senate Bill 909. This is the bill that creates an education investment board which would work to develop a unified outcomes based budgeting approach for education and look at making investments in education instead of looking at education in different silos. At the April Presidents Council board meeting, the governor reassured the presidents that local governance would not change with the new model, and the approach would allow the state to act as more of an investor and possibly strengthen the role of local governance. The OCCA board and the presidents expressed support for the concept of an investment board, but encouraged the development of clear language to guide future legislators and governors.

Lane Community College day at the Capitol will be April 27. There will be legislative visits scheduled throughout the day, an official welcome from the Senate and House, and Lane exhibits on display. Contact Brett Rowlett if you are interested in attending.

Kudos to Information Technology for implementing Project Clean-Up, a four-week effort to dig in and resolve a backlog of work requests. Last summer's bond work essentially doubled their number of work requests, which put them behind. They began Project Clean-Up in March with 831 open incidents. By the end of the four weeks, they had resolved 592 of those, or 70 percent. That's a huge accomplishment. Their response time to incoming requests now is faster. IT also upgraded six computer labs, increased Internet speed for our aviation programs at the airport, and sent some programmers to Banner trainings. Special kudos to project manager Barb Barlow.

I'd like to thank everyone who helped out following the Japan earthquake and tsunami on March 11. Our Florence campus started with a delay, then a closure, and we issued alert messages to inform students and staff and to discourage travel to the coast. On main campus, Sonya Christian and our International Programs staff contacted our students from Japan within a couple of hours. We have 20 students from Japan, including three from the Sendai/Fukashima area. Fortunately, none of their immediate families members were hurt, although two family homes were badly damaged. Students wanted to help so our International Programs office organized a fundraising table in the cafeteria. International students made paper cranes and calligraphy bookmarks to give away for donations and raised more than $1,400.

Incidentally, our application for the Oregon Emergency Management seismic rehabilitation fund was denied for the second time. Apparently there are buildings in greater need, but we are continuing to work with legislators on that.

We had a windstorm March 22 that caused about $2,800 in damages for roof repairs on four buildings, clean up of downed branches, and some blown-out panels on the smoking shelters.

Downtown Campus site activity is getting underway beginning with soil stabilization work such as jet-grouting, demolition of asphalt paving, filling with crushed rock, and drilling geo-wells. It's very exciting.

We are a finalist for another $100,000 EWEB GreenPower grant to help cover the cost of photovoltaic array for the Downtown Campus academic building roof. EWEB green energy customers vote on what project to fund. They will announce the winner on Earth Day. Lane received the very first GreenPower grant for our solar station outdoor classroom. We have a committee working this term to develop procedural protocols for electric vehicle parking at the station. Meanwhile, the station has been supplying electricity for our Health and Wellness Center.

I am very pleased to announce that we have developed a Climate Action Plan for Lane. A team of college and community experts compiled 61 actions that will put us on a solid path toward carbon neutrality. This plan will be updated and refined as it is reviewed by more members of our community, and over time as technologies, perceptions and availability of resources change. This is a living document that will help the college navigate toward a more sustainable world while providing inspiration and information to help our students to do the same. The plan considered existing institutional structures, a comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory, the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, and climate action plans developed by other colleges, universities and cities. It has been reviewed at Managers Forum, Facilities Council, Sustainability Committee, and College Council, and there is a website for more information. I'd like to commend Sonya Christian, Brian Kelly and Jennifer Hayward for their leadership on this project.

On March 12, we held our first track and field meet since 2005. Everyone loved the new track. Several Lane athletes qualified for the NWAACC championships. Participating colleges included Willamette University, Northwest Christian University, Southwestern Oregon Community College, and College of the Siskiyous. We were featured in the March issue of High School Today, a national publication, and the new facilities got a nice review in The Register-Guard. Next up, we will host the NWAACC Regional Championships on May 14. Kudos to coach Grady O'Connor for all of the work he has done to make this a reality.

I attended the Women in Transitions graduation March 17. About 120 students celebrated completion of their first term, including Career and Life Planning and Life Transitions. Recognizing accomplishments along the way helps encourage students to stay in school and complete their goals. These women talked about their dreams, which varied from aviation maintenance to speech therapy. About 300 people attended.

I just got back from the AACC convention in New Orleans. While there I had the privilege of standing in for Rosaria Haugland to accept her Outstanding Alumni Award, one of four given by AACC. Rosaria is one of Lane's Distinguished Alumni, having taken the Small Business Management Program while at Molecular Probes, which she co-founded. The company became a worldwide, multimillion dollar success before they sold to Invitrogen. Rosaria has been on our Foundation board since 2004, and she is on our Opening Doors campaign leadership team. Rosaria has been extremely generous in giving to Lane, and she is a tremendous inspiration to our students. She was the first in her family to graduate from college and she earned a doctorate in biology from the University of Milan and a doctorate in biochemistry from Syracuse University before becoming a successful businesswoman.

Susie and I have been invited to attend the regional follow up to the White House Summit. We will be joined by Dr. Jill Biden and Undersecretary Kanter. I have been asked to do the closing comments. The All Oregon Academic Team awards will be held in Salem on April 21, sponsored by OCCA. Lane's scholars this year are Lori Wilson and Matthew Ray. I will speak at the Senior Companion Program annual luncheon on April 26 with Helen Garrett and Mayor Piercy and then go on to our annual Advisory Committee Dinner that evening. The annual President's Circle reception is May 5, and please note that the college will be closed for spring conference on Friday, May 6. I hope you can join us for some of these events.