********************************************* 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. *********************************************  January 10, 2024 Governing Board... >> MS. THERESA RIEL: We're going to call this meeting to order. Will you please stand and join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. I'm going to call roll. We have two board members that are with us via Zoom. Luis Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Present, here. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Dr. Wade McLean? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Present. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Mr. Greg Taylor? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Here. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Ms. Maria Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Here. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Theresa Riel, I'm here. Thank you. I want to read the Land Acknowledgement Statement. We acknowledge that Pima Community College is on the original homelands of the Tohono O'odham people and the Pascua Yaqui who have stewarded this land since time immemorial. The practice of acknowledging the land of these sovereign nations brings to the forefront their enduring connection to this land regardless of historical and current colonization practices. Let's also acknowledge that we all benefit from these lands on which we work and learn. We encourage each of you today to learn  about the land we inhabit, the tribal communities connected to this land, and the ways in which you can contribute to restorative practices related to land and community. Thank you. Moving on to item 2.1, the election of Arizona Association of Community College Trustees representatives for the 2024 year. Dr. McLean, do you have a motion? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: So I would move that primary representatives would be the Governing Board Chair, Theresa Riel, and the backup member would be me, Wade McLean. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Is there a second? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Motion by Dr. McLean and second by Maria and Luis both, thank you, I'll be the representative and Dr. McLean will be the alternate. By the way, we have been doing this. We've been both going to the meetings so it's been very nice. All in favor, say aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to 2.2, the election of the two advisory committee board representatives for the finance and audit committee. Currently it's Maria and myself that have been doing that. I like it. It's a great committee. It's very, very informative.  I think Maria would agree with me. But if another board member would like to step into that place, that would be okay. Otherwise... So do I have a motion? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Motion to accept me and Theresa Riel, Maria Garcia, as representatives to the finance and audit committee. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Moved and seconded for Maria and myself to be the representatives to the board advisory committee, the finance and audit committee. All in favor, say aye. (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Section 3.1, the public comment, call to the audience. We have two registered speakers. Richard Hernandez, you'll be up first. Thank you. So the lights are or are not working? Are not. We'll give you the -- thank you. >> No problem. I have done three minutes many times before. Happy New Year to everyone. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Happy New Year. >> This is an interesting year. We get to elect the leader of the free world, the President of the United States, people like me and you who are taxpayers and voters, but we also get to elect three new board members to Pima College. This is a really important time, especially for those of us who live on the south side, minorities  like myself. The last election cycle, I spent a lot of time knocking on doors. I was even on Public Radio once or twice talking about we needed to, at that time, the former chair, I think his name was Clinco, we had to get rid of him, and we did. Now the major challenge today is we need a new chancellor, a permanent chancellor who has to be appointed by you. We need to propel into 2024. One of the many things I told the community, especially the south side, to get a new elected member, was that not only to get rid of Chancellor Lambert but some of his staffers. Two of them still stand out, for me, and that's Jeff Silvyn and Tom Davis. I say to you, chancellor, acting chancellor and chair, why are they still here? I want to reaffirm my commitment to many of you that I spoke to publicly, and I talked about this on Public Radio, that we need new leadership. Elections have consequences. We're about to elect three of you. Not appoint, but elect. So one of the concerns I have is that I see movement towards bringing back the old regime. I want to remind the five of you that two-thirds of the voters said we don't want to go that way. That's why we have new people on this board. It is time for you to reaffirm, move forward. The second thing besides selecting the chancellor that I want to recommend is no one on the executive leadership team should get a  contract. Let the new chancellor decide who his team or her team will be. We got great opportunities here. 2024 allows you, the people, to speak, to vote. I'm reaffirming my commitment to the people that I spoke to that I'm going to still work towards my commitment, that change. We do need a new chancellor, Madam Chair, as soon as possible. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Mr. Hernandez. Next up, Makyla Hays. >> MAKYLA HAYS: Good evening, board members, chancellor, colleagues, and guests. My name is Makyla Hays. Faculty, PCCEA president, AERC co-chair. I love that people took the time and interest to submit 23 pages of thoughts regarding BP 1.25 to the board. I counted 65 voices in support of the employee version and 20 in support of version B for 85 voices total, which is amazing. I wanted to address some concerns raised regarding the HLC. First, HLC doesn't require that we leave all things the same during a review. Rather, they want to see that we have identified areas that need growth and are handling those areas strategically. Some of the places that were identified were Criterion 2.C.1 and 2.C.2. The board should be trained and knowledgeable and deliberations reflect priorities to preserve and enhance the institution.  The proposed changes don't impact these criteria. Rather the board would have more opportunity to ask questions and hear concerns helping you meet your legal and fiduciary responsibilities. Criterion 2.C.3 and 2.C.4, the board reviews the reasonable and relevant interests of the institution's internal and external constituencies during its decision-making deliberations and has independence from undue influence. This is what we are asking for. What better way to review those interests for internal and external than by having both parties present their justifications to you as you deliberate. Again, these would both be public discussions and your deliberations would be public. These are large-scale, public-facing policies and not individual matters, and as such, they don't require confidentiality. Criterion 2.C.5, day-to-day operations delegated to the chancellor. This was brought up in several of the different comments in support of the administrative proposal. I discussed this in the December study session noting that it's typically mentioned under ensuring faculty have academic oversight. The argument made here, though, in the main comment was about fear of deterring candidates from applying. This change does not so much take power away from the chancellor as it provides employees with more of a voice and reduces fear, leading to real shared governance. Any future chancellor for PCC should value such a change. One comment stated a concern that employees will bring items to  the board out of political motivation with increasing frequency to get their way. Another comment seems to imply that the representative voice of the All-Employee Representative Council is not truly representative. They also imply that the stance taken by members on this issue or others is a minority stance, or that we endeavor to put the board in a bad spot. That's just simply not true. Your AERC is composed of voted-in representatives and members of the employee representative groups or unions. We are charged with ensuring the best interests of employees, the college, and ultimately our students. To imply that this policy suggestion was a power play is frankly absurd. Rather, the system structure as is doesn't truly allow for employee voices to be heard at the level that shared governance and higher education should be. Thank you for considering these changes, and I look forward to the retreat tomorrow and continued conversation. Thank you for inviting your shared governance groups. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Makyla. Once again, call to the audience is a really important part of communication with community and the board, and we really appreciate both of you taking your time to speak to us. Thank you. Moving on to section 3.3, remarks by Governing Board members. Mr. Taylor, would you like to start? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Sure. I'll just -- >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I made a mistake. Sorry, Marcy. You are correct. Marcy Euler from the Pima College Foundation is going to  give her report. Please forgive me. >> MARCY EULER: It's okay. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. >> MARCY EULER: I'm not offended (smiling). Thank you. Good evening, Chair Riel, Governing Board members, Interim Chancellor, faculty, guests, colleagues, friends. I wanted to do a brief overview of the year that we had at the Foundation. I'm not going to read all the slides to you, so rest assured, you got them in your packet, but I do want to make sure and remind you that Pima Foundation is the philanthropic partner to the college, and we support the students, faculty, and programs that are important to our region as well as to the institution. I have provided our mission and vision and purpose, and everything we do we do through the benefit of the college and the students and the community that we serve. So I have gone through and added a number of slides that are based on the year that we just saw. A number of video links or other links are provided, so you can watch. We had a video around the Ford ASSET program that started in January. Our annual report came out in February, and you can link that there if you have not read it previously. Sorry, this slide is so good, and it got cut off in the translation from my computer to this computer, so I apologize. In collaboration with workforce development and the Center of Opportunity, Pima START, which is Success Through Advanced Reskilling  and Training, is the program at the Center of Opportunity to help those people who are formerly homeless get training that will allow them to not just have a sustainable living wage but a thrivable living wage. We presented on that at the League of Innovation and again later in the year. In April we did a number of different things, including an investor luncheon downtown, signing day and focus on our future, which is happening again this April. In May, graduation, always a wonderful celebration of what Pima is all about. Also, our first cohort for the Earn to Learn scholarship that is focused on students who are financially disadvantaged but in programs that are too short-term to receive financial aid for. Our first cohort is relatively small. It's the Ford ASSET students. There is 16 of them that are continuing through the program right now. So we are doing the 8-to-1 match in collaboration with Earn to Learn. We were the first community college in the country to partner with Earn to Learn, to do Associate's degrees, and now do workforce support as well. In June, our fiscal year ended. We brought in about a million dollars more in income than we did in expense, which is always good. We had substantial gifts from Urban Research Park and Banner Health prior fiscal year, and so far this fiscal year a substantial gift from the Oro Valley Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Arizona Complete Health. That's just through the first six months of our fiscal year.  July, we had the going-away celebration for Chancellor Lambert. That's also a slow time for us so there is not a lot on this slide. In August we welcomed our Interim Chancellor. This was one of our advertisements in BizTUCSON, identifying that we have new leadership but we expect continued excellence at the institution and with the Foundation. September, this was a group of our team, Zulma, as well as the scholarship team from financial aid and scholarships, attending the National Scholarship Providers Association. We work hand in glove to make sure that students are provided with as much financial support as possible. October was super busy. I know that Chairperson Riel went to the Pima Diamondbacks game with a number of us. We presented, Interim Chancellor, Chair Riel, Ian Roark and myself, presented about the Pima START program at the ACCT conference, and a number of other things that took place. One of the most exciting things was we moved to a new office. Thank you to Phil and his team in marketing and external relations and to STAR for doing the domino shifting into the office. We are thrilled and it is such a great situation for us, so we are really happy. November, one of the students that won the contest that we did for our art designs for some invitations, we identified Brandy McDermott, that's one of her designs there. We did soccer. We did a number of different things in November. In December, I actually served with both of you at ZooLights  handing out candy canes and collecting books, and the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for athletics was the first one in ten years. That was a real wonderful thing to be able to participate in. I started my job here in full capacity on August 1, 2018. On July 31, 2018, our portfolio was $7.48 million. As of December 31 of this year, five-and-a-half years later, essentially, we have $15.4 million in our portfolio and 8.8 million is endowed. Now, that's really good, but even more important to me is that we are spending the money the way our donors intended for us to do. For the calendar year, January 1 through December 31, we provided $650,000-plus in scholarships to students that were disbursed according to the donors' wishes and criterion, and then program support in excess of almost $2.3 million. So we are growing our portfolio, but we are also spending money on behalf of the college in the way that our donors intend us to. We have some goals for the coming year. These are kind of our three high-level goals, and we'll be doing more work at our board retreat later this month. This is my team. They are a phenomenal group, but we can't do this alone. Each and every one of you and each and every one of you are people who make our jobs easier. You're the people who go out and talk with potential donors, that know former students, that talk with business leaders about the college and the incredible things that are happening here. So while this is my team, you all are part of my team too. We appreciate all you do to help make our jobs easier.  This is our new address. We are in Room 246 here at District Office. We are easy to find. If you ever want to e-mail any of us it's our first name from the prior slide followed by @PimaFoundation.org. If you have a chance and want to look at our year in review, Savannah Franco who does our social media, you can click on that and see a really rapid-fire 30 seconds of what happened during the course of the year. So that is my report. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Marcy. Okay, now moving on to board members' reports. Mr. Taylor? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Sure. I'll be brief. Happy New Year to everyone in the Pima College community, everyone today and our faculty, staff, and administrators. And a big thank you to everybody that took the time, as we heard in the public comments being mentioned, to submit comments on BP 1.25. I really appreciated all the insights, whichever side or whichever, A or B, the people are advocating for, it was really helpful to see everybody's thoughts and hear them. I read through all of them. I wanted to extend that appreciation for anybody that took the time to put their thoughts together for that. That's it. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Ms. Garcia? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, welcome, everyone, and Happy New Year. I'm really looking forward to an extremely productive year coming up. We have a lot of work to do.  I share in the comments that Mr. Taylor made in reference to the comments that were sent in about our board policy change. I guess the only thing I can say for myself is I think it's taken a long time to get anything through, so I'm hoping that this coming year we will work a little bit faster in getting things on the agenda as well as making changes that we believe are necessary. As a board member, I appreciate each and every one of you. I value my peers, their comments. I value the support that Dave Borofsky and other employees have provided me. My job for myself anyway this coming year, I just want to say that I'm here to represent the community and all of you. I don't have any personal interest in anything that -- you know, I'm not loyal to any one group, because that's what has been stated in the past. It is about the community. It's about doing what's best for our students and our community and developing it, as well as the business community. Also, thank you so much for the faculty and staff. Without the faculty, we wouldn't be putting out the great students and career people that this college puts out. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Ms. Garcia. Mr. Gonzales, do you have comments for us? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes. I just want to let everybody know Happy New Year's, and I think it's going to be a very productive new year for all of us. I just want to mention that what was said before, I echo that as well, too, but more important, as one of the words that was mentioned  a while ago, it's not only the community but the voices of the community, reference to what was shared earlier by Ms. Makyla Hays. I think it's very important and imperative that we hear all that information and that we also provide the feedback as well, too. The five of us as board members, we need to listen to the people but also do what is best for the college and do the right thing. I think it's a must for all of us. As mentioned earlier, we're going to have three new, possibly three new board members, elected board members, but I think it will be good. I welcome people that have interest and want to be supportive and also want to invest in the volunteer work that we have done in the past. My position is also ending, but I'm going to run again in reference to being on the board. I still think there is a lot of work to do, but more important, I believe in the staff and believe in the faculty, but I believe in the community as well, too, and Pima providing those essential trainings, but also classes that are needed for the betterment of the community and betterment of the college. With those two words, thank you. Bye-bye. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Mr. Gonzales. Dr. McLean? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: I have no comments for tonight. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I'm going to take your time and my time. Thank you. (Laughter.) So I hope you all wrote your New Year's resolutions, and I hope  you forgave yourself the next day for not doing them the first day. That's what I do every year. I was up in Phoenix a couple of days ago and heard Governor Hobbs speak, and she spoke about how much she's enjoying being the governor. I swear she took the words out of my mouth, words that I have said. I am very appreciative and thrilled to be on the board. I think this is one of the greatest institutions in Southern Arizona, and we are really, really fortunate to have Pima College in our midst. I have two goals. I was going to show you my little list of things, I have all sorts of things to check off every day. I only have one check so far and we are on Day 10, so I decided not to do that. But my two goals for this year, personal goals, not necessarily that the board will go along with me or that it will even come to fruition, but my goal is I would like to see the college have a much more happy, peaceful, safe feeling here where every employee feels like they are valued and that they matter and that they have opportunities for growth and development. Over the last two months, I have had a few people come up to me and tell me that they still feel that the college isn't a family. I know we are a big institution, but I do want to work on those family issues. So I mentioned to the chancellor and to the legal counsel that at some point I would like to start, you know, a meeting, get-together, where we could brainstorm ways of making sure that when we feel something is not going well or is going well at the college,  there is a safe place to share that information, that it won't be taken as a criticism, right? We all make mistakes. But it won't be a criticism. It will be an opportunity for growth and improvement. I think the board is willing to accept those kind of criticisms. We want to be better. I won't make the same mistake next time, Marcy. I will be much more careful about following the darn numbers. It's right here in front of me, too. Anyway, that's the first thing. We want to work on that. This culture of caring, it goes beyond just the words of saying we are going to have a culture of caring at the college. We need to work on the fact that we want everyone to feel welcome, empowered, and that there are opportunities for growth and development for each and every employee here. The second thing I would like to do is I was reflecting back -- I have been having those beginning-of-the-year nightmares. I haven't taught for four years, but I still have those nightmares about first day of school and showing up with the wrong textbook or the wrong class or not knowing where I was going. I was reflecting on the evaluations we had as faculty. So we had evaluations by our supervisors, our deans, or whoever is over us. I should have cleared this with somebody. I'm not really sure if that's how it's still done, but that's how it was done five years ago. And then we also have the students who are our subordinates. They are also our clients and our students, and all that. So we had 360-degree evaluations, and they happened each and every semester.  That was really beneficial. Even though it hurt my feelings and broke my heart every day, every semester when I would open up my evaluations, and there would be one that just said horrible things about me. I was the worst teacher ever. Anyway, I would be so upset about that. One of my mentors, Sue Jensen, she was a math faculty at the East Campus, she said, Theresa, you don't take that to heart. Just listen to the words the person is saying, and then make sure you're improving on that aspect of your teaching or being there. So what I'm going to really encourage the college to do and I'm going to push forward is that we start having evaluations, that they are not punitive. It's more of a sit-down, this is what I see you're doing well, and this is where you could be better. It can be the supervisors helping develop their team and it can be the team helping develop the administrator. Instead of being punitive and nasty-type evaluations, I want it to be something where we can all grow and learn. So those are my two goals this year. I think even though they sound like they're sort of opposites, one is a culture of caring and one is being evaluated, if we do evaluation the right way, it can only help all of us be a better college. Thank you, welcome back, and I hope you are more successful on your New Year's resolutions. Thank you. And now, we're moving on to the Pima Mission Moment with Emily and -- thank you. Will you please introduce everybody when you get  up here? Thank you. >> All right. Good evening, board, chancellor, colleagues and guests. I'm Emily Halvorson-Otts and I am the dean of sciences here at Pima. I have the honor of talking about the Arizona STEM Adventure that we partner with SARSEF. We have been doing this since 2015 at the Northwest Campus. We bring approximately 800 fourth through eighth graders every year to the campus to engage them in wonder and excitement around STEM-related activities. I'm going to let Susan and Julia speak more about it, because it is their enthusiasm, expertise, and support that really make the STEM Adventure happen. If you would officially introduce yourself. >> Hi, my name is Julia Michalak. I'm the Student Life coordinator at the Northwest Campus. >> I'm Susan Kramer. I'm the science lab supervisor at the Northwest Campus. >> For the Student Life coordinator position, it was something that I inherited when I came into the role. Historically the position has been involved with the planning committee in the role of helping to recruit student volunteers as well as logistics when needed, as well. So I was able to be a part of the planning committee, the selection process of the schools, and then offering assistance when needed for logistics.  This has been a longstanding partnership with the science division to provide a co-curricular volunteer experience for our Pima students. So the fourth through eighth grade students throughout the years, they have remarked that one of the most memorable parts of their day is being able to interact and speak to our students who serve primarily as their group leaders throughout the day and also assist with our exhibitors. I would like to also give a special thank you to our faculty. Part of the recruitment process that I do is request to have some time within their classrooms to present this opportunity to them, and so for them allowing us and them sharing out as well this opportunity for them to get involved, and then also at times offering extra credit for their students who do participate. Part of the recruitment, we allowed, invited SARSEF to come and table on campus, invited them to key events with our engineering and our science divisions, as well, in order to recruit our student volunteers throughout the day. I'll let Susan talk a little bit more about the exhibitor side of the house, as well. >> Good evening. So I kind of oversee the whole thing, but with Julia's help, we pull it all together somehow. My big role is working on getting exhibitors to the event with SARSEF. Since this is really SARSEF's event, we are just the host site. They really dictate what they are looking for for each year, so we have approximately 30 to 35 exhibitors who we ask to participate.  Some of them are our own faculty. So we have science faculty, physics, chemistry, biology, trying to remember what else, engineering, who are exhibitors. We also have outside organizations such as the Women's Chemistry Group, which is a group of retired chemistry faculty basically who do stuff all year long. Then we also have organizations that come, such as Raytheon who will do activities with the kids or do presentations with the kids. Some of the activities that the kids get to do, they get to make their own Silly Putty, which is a big hit. Raytheon actually brings in liquid nitrogen, and they show them what they can do with liquid nitrogen, and they actually get a sample of ice cream to sample. They also do things, like we have the reptile, I forget their name, sorry, conservancy come in with their reptiles, so the kids get to actually handle the reptiles. There is a whole host of different activities that the kids get to do. The primary goal is to get them interested in science so that they can think of it as a career potential. I do want to mention, as well, we really do have a lot of support from our PCC staff and faculty. They also volunteer for this event. It takes about a hundred volunteers to put this on every year. If you want to come next year, it's always the Friday before Thanksgiving and you can come check it out. >> So I'm going to summarize. We were asked to do this after I submitted the board report. So in the board report, there is a  lengthy description of the Arizona STEM Adventure. Were the pictures included? Okay. So there is lots of pictures in the board report, but I wanted to just -- I realize I forgot to add one more thing. Since COVID, we also started partnering with SARSEF to provide a virtual STEM Adventure for the students. That actually reaches out to all of Arizona, and that reaches approximately a thousand more students. So this fall, we reached over 2,000 students in STEM-related activities through fourth through eighth grade with partnering with SARSEF, which is a local nonprofit. I wanted to add two more things. I have three goals for the Arizona STEM Adventure, and you have heard two of them already. One is engage the students in the curiosity, enjoyment, love of STEM-related activities, have them think about their future in STEM. The No. 2 one is to engage with Pima faculty and students that look like them. The third one is to get them on a college campus so that they can envision a future of going to college. So with that, I'm going to give you two quotes that the students had, and we had many, many quotes. My students loved it. One of the best parts for me was hearing students discuss how the exhibits related to lessons they had learned at school. I'm great to hear students make connections to learning and be actively engaged. Thank you for the opportunity to bring students. It had a huge impact. Many said it was their favorite field trip. It opened the students' eyes to the variety of STEM in  the real world. With that, thank you for this opportunity to speak about the Arizona STEM Adventure. (Applause.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Moving on to section 4.1, the administration report. We'll start with Mr. Jim Craig, please. You know, my computer isn't working, but... sorry. Dr. Bea? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Chairperson Riel, members of the board, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, colleagues and guests, it's my pleasure tonight to provide a brief overview of the college's fiscal year '23 financial statements. I see that I have five minutes. I doubt I'll be able to do it within five, but I will try to keep to that and this will be a very high-level overview of the annual report. As board members know, the reports were issued in mid to late December, and they are sent directly to the board by the auditor general's office and they are posted on our website. I encourage anyone who is interested in really learning and digging into the details of the college's finances and other statistical information to take a look at that report. I'm just going to hit the very high-level changes year over year and then sort of the key takeaways from the annual financial report here tonight. So starting with the -- I think I shot too far here. I went  backwards. Hold on. There. User error. Sorry. There we go. That's where I wanted to start. Starting with revenues, the key changes year over year are basically the end of the COVID relief money, so the major infusion of federal aid that came into the college in '21 and '22 phased out in '23, so the biggest change you see here is the reduction in federal grants of a little more than $41 million. Again, that was just one-time funds coming in through the COVID relief money. Offsetting that reduction are increases in tuition and fees, contracts, small increases in those areas, and then more significant increases in property tax revenue that was planned, property tax levy increase and growth in our taxes, and also in investment earnings related to the changes in interest rates that happened over that period of time. So overall, a big reduction in revenues, but again, mostly that's just because of the reduction of the one-time federal aid. Our ongoing revenues went up. In terms of expenses, the key takeaway again related to the COVID relief money is the big reduction in expenses for financial aid. Those were direct pass-through dollars to students related to COVID relief money, and then increases spread throughout the different operating expense categories. Primarily those related to salary, approved salary increases. Class comp, this was the year that the class comp program was implemented, so big increases for compensation. Increased costs related to pension liability. And then the continuation of expenditures related to the centers of  excellence. So these were all planned and known increased expenses. Again, because of the centers of excellence, there is a planned reduction overall, and we've talked with the board about that, but you will also see that. Again, I just highlighted this. Increases related to compensation and pension liability. The reduction in the financial aid is related to the COVID relief money. And then the increase in contractual services is again the contractual increases related to our centers of excellence projects. Skip that. In terms of the net position, this is where the college's overall financial picture is as of June 30th. Again, spending down a little bit from our overall reserves, you see a reduction in the cash and cash equivalents there, and overall an increase invested in capital assets, you see that toward the bottom there, where we're building the buildings, we have more capital assets now online, and that's reflected in there. The change in restricted net position and a shift over to unrestricted net position is the paying down of bonds which are technically restricted, and then those capital assets come online and they are unrestricted once they go through that process. In terms of the key takeaways is that we received again an unmodified opinion. That's everything you want to get from the auditor general's office. That means that the reports reflect in their opinion reflect in all material ways the accurate statement for the college's financials that this year we also implemented GASB 96  which is subscription-based IT. It's a technical accounting process to categorize when you have ongoing license arrangements for IT-related expenses. That's something we now have to reflect in our financial reports. Overall, it reflects again, and we have talked with the board about this, an overall strong financial position at the college. I talked a little bit about what the changes are. One other thing that isn't reflected in this that came in between when we were putting this report together and today was that one of the credit-rating agencies, through their regular annual process, reviews our financial performance, and they confirmed that our ratings are staying the same. That's good news. So our issuer rating is a AA for Fitch. The revenue bonds are AA- and the outlook is stable. And again, they essentially just issued a report that says that they've confirmed that for another year. That's good news. I do want to take a second to thank the folks -- oops. I cannot figure this out. There we go. Cecily Westphal, Marisa Mandal, Ariane Echard, Brenda Lee, Melissa Morrison, Tim Rapoza, Steven Ritter, and Bernie Simon. Bernie is about to retire. These are the folks who spend countless hours working with the auditors through the audit process, getting these financial statements where they are ready for review by the auditor and then get through the audit process successfully. So thank you to all of them. And as the board knows, next steps are going to be related to  developing the budget for the upcoming year. We are having a study session in February. Looking forward to talking with you all about that. I will pause there and ask if there are any questions related to the annual financials. All right. Thank you. I think I went over five. Sorry. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: You did great. Thanks, Dr. Bea. Okay. Now moving on to the reports by representatives. I do have it in front of me now. We will just go in order. Student report from Rebecca Ursule. >> REBECCA URSULE: Good evening, chancellor, board members, chairperson, Pima faculty and guests. I'm pleased to share a summary of recent activities and achievements during the fall semester. The student senators hosted a highly successful Town Hall event fostering (indiscernible) engagements among the student body. We extend our special thanks to the Interim Chancellor for generously taking part in the meeting addressing students' questions and sharing valuable insights. We also express gratitude to the Pima Community leadership for their continuous presence and unwavering support to our Town Hall meetings. Their involvement is integral to the success of our initiatives. In the fall semester, we had a meeting with Dennis Chilton and Melissa Lewis from the Pima department of payment. During this meeting we discussed payment options and various issues that students  were facing. They not only successfully addressed the concerns but also committed to updating the payment web page. We extend our gratitude to the Pima department of payments for their efforts. Also pleased to inform you that I had a meeting during the fall semester with Dr. Aubrey, Joseph and Anthony, organized by Dr. Valerie to discuss the bike path line. During the meeting, we received updates and assurance that the campus is actively working to collaborate with the City of Tucson to ensure the creation of a bike path lane. Throughout the fall semester, the student senators participated in various meetings, involvement fairs, tabling events, high school collaboration, being part of the safety committee department, Market on the Move program, and other programs, all of which were executed successfully. We are enthusiastic about sustaining this momentum and continuing to advocate for the welfare of our fellow students. In addition to these achievements, each senator is responsible for completing a project which can range from a gift to a campus prepared by the Student Senate to create a project or ongoing event series to address a critical issue. We are excited to announce that the Student Senate led by Marcus V. is partnering with the Foundation to raise funds for a (indiscernible) award. We are confident in the fundraising efforts and believe that this award will make a meaningful difference. As part of our project, we are looking to collaborate with the financial aid office for the annual fall fair event to present this award to a  PCC student attending the fall semester 2024 events. We are planning our spring retreat for the Student Senate on January 16th to prepare for the upcoming semester and strategize on the successful execution of our initiatives. Looking ahead, there is currently one vacant position for the Northwest Campus. The application is currently live on PimaEngage and closed on Monday, January 29th at 11:59 p.m. We are committed to swiftly filling this position to ensure effective representation. In the interim, we are pleased to announce that Atheena Martinez has volunteered to assist as needed and will contribute her valuable insight and dedication to the position. We remain dedicated to a mission of representing the student body and enhancing the overall student experience. Thank you for your ongoing support. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Mr. Craig? You'll be next. Thank you. >> JIM CRAIG: Good evening, and Happy New Year, Chairperson Riel, distinguished board, Chancellor Duran-Cerda, PCC family and friends. The Pima Community College offered local law enforcement agencies the opportunity to have first responders and investigators attend an eight-hour workshop on cyber crimes, the dark web, and associated technology strategies for issues of significance at crime scenes. This course examined and illustrated the potential computer evidence a first responder might encounter at a crime scene.  Topics included how to recognize illegal activity on a visible computer screen, becoming familiar with the dark web and illegal associated activity, recognizing what might be pertinent evidence and the best handling of potential evidence. Participants also examined the laws and regulations that have been put in place to combat these crimes. In addition, the security and safety issues facing officers were identified and strategies to reduce and/or eliminate them were offered. This very successful pilot will evolve into a train-the-trainer curriculum intended to be shared throughout the community statewide and possibly nationwide. Thanks to Chris Bonhorst, academic director of IT/cybersecurity, and Marla Burnett-Fletcher, associate professor administration of justice studies, for this interdisciplinary effort with very broad impact to the law enforcement ecosystem. You already heard about the wonderful STEM Adventure. Also wanted to let you know about the Arizona near-space research, ASCEND!, which is a near-space balloon research mission funded by NASA. Each semester students team from different Arizona colleges to take part in designing and constructing their payloads, which consist of scientific equipment to be launched into the stratosphere attached to a balloon. Students get to choose the equipment based on the experiments they create. This real-world engineering project provides students with technical and practical skills. It also allows students to gain hands-on experience. This semester's balloon launch just occurred on  October 17 when the team saw all their payloads sent off. Our Pima team consisted of Matthew Oracase (phonetic) majoring in electrical engineering, Roberto Navarro majoring in aerospace engineering, and two mechanical engineering majors, Timothy A. and Jordan B. They have employed every part of STEM to achieve their payload goals this semester, utilizing this scientific method to help develop their experience, harnessing technology to sensor-record data, engineering to build the housing that keeps the technology safe, and using mathematics to analyze the data gathered. Their payload was successfully launched and retrieved. Data was collected from the many sensors, and video from the ascent and descent of the flight was successfully collected. The team thanks their mentors, Ann Marie Condes and Ross Wildrup (phonetic). There is a new FastTrack program from HIT, which is the certified electronic health records specialist FastTrack program, taught by Kelly O'Keefe, program director for HIT. It has enrolled 22 students just since it began in 2023 with a 91.6% pass rates from those students who have taken the national exam with the National Healthcareer Association. A new cohort of students enrolled begins every month on the 1st to accommodate the flexibility in the schedule of potential students to begin soon after registration. The course is designed to be completed in four months. However, many students have been extremely motivated and finished the course in as little as one month. Two students have already been hired by Banner Medical Center and will be  starting new positions in January of 2024, this month. Others have enrolled in the for-credit HIT program at Pima to earn higher-level certifications and/or the HIT degree, and many of the remaining students have elected to continue their studies with the certified billing and coding specialist FastTrack taught by Wanda Register, which just began this last November, as well. This is such a great example of a success story related to FastTrack microcredentials and competency-based open-entry, open-exit learning models. Finally, some input from the committee. Chancellor Duran-Cerda joined the All College Council, ACC, meeting on December 14. Dolores shared the Interim Chancellor goals and facilitated very lively discussion on the ACC potentially focusing on one or more of these goals. One of the top areas of concern was retention. How can we collectively work together to address retention issues from the perspective of students, faculty, staff, and community members to ensure more students complete to achieve every goal that they set out to achieve. The ACC embraced Dolores' request to pursue looking at some aspects of retention as work for the ACC to take on this year in addition to shared governance. The ACC also voted on and approved the addition of an AERC member attending the ACC meetings going forward to share projects and initiatives and to help clarify the roles and responsibilities of the  two committees. Jeff Silvyn reviewed the AP 1.06.01 titled All College Council. ACC is actively making recommendations in revising the AP to make it relevant and effective. This concludes my report. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. We have a third report, a staff report from Downi Griner. I'm not sure if she might be online if she's not here? Is she online? >> DOWNI GRINER: Yes, I am online. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. We're ready for your report. >> DOWNI GRINER: Good evening, board members, Interim Chancellor, colleagues and guests. For our report in January, I wanted to bring up that we are in the midst of Super Saturday events for spring 2024 enrollment. These events are meant to support students enrolling at Pima. They offer help with admissions, advising, registration, financial aid, and much more. The first was on December 2nd. The second was on December 9th. We had one last Saturday on January 6, and our final one will be on January 13. Student Life, Access and Disability Resources, Veteran and Military Services, PimaOnline, and other supports are also available at these events. In our meetings, we talked about public service loan forgiveness, which has been very helpful for our employees and even graduating  students who have worked at U.S. government entities or tax-exempt institutions that can get loan forgiveness for their undergraduate loans. We did learn about a new valuable program that's coming up or that is already available called SAVE. The saving is a plan that is the newest income-driven repayment plan. What this does is it calculates your monthly payment based on your income and family size, so what this will do will benefit employees and our students with lower payments for many borrowers. How this is newer is it lowers payments for almost all people compared to other plans. It bases this on a smaller portion of the adjusted gross income and an interest benefit which means that if your monthly payment does not cover the accrued interest, then the government will cover the rest of the interest. More elements of this will go into effect in summer 2024 and will lower payments even more for borrowers and undergraduate loans, and this will be helpful to both our faculty and our students as they move forward. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda, time for your report. Thank you. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Thank you, board chair. Happy New Year. Welcome back, everyone. It's great to see you all here. It's an exciting time to start the spring semester, and I'm very happy to be in this role.  I was reflecting over the break, you know, it's been, I guess I just started my sixth month as Interim Chancellor, and I just am very grateful for this opportunity, and it truly is an honor to be serving in this role at this time. So my goals, Interim Chancellor's goals, there are four of them, and I just wanted to report that we're in good shape. So prepare the college for reaffirmation of accreditation. We are well on our way and thank you, all of you, who are here and virtually who have helped us reach our goals in a timely way. The second goal is to increase enrollment which includes persistence, retention, and completion, and we're going to be making more efforts towards that. We have had four consecutive months where enrollment has been increasing, so we are very pleased with that. No. 3 for my interim chancellor's goals is enhancing a culture of caring. We have talked about that tonight, and we want to further enhance it. So one of the things I'm going to be doing this semester early on is to go to the campuses and have chats, chats with Interim Chancellor, with staff and faculty, and just hear about what is it that's going well, things that are improving, doing well. And opportunities for growth that we can address, too. So I'll be scheduling those very soon to be meeting at the campuses. Also, my fourth goal is improve effectiveness, and that's just looking overall our cost savings and ways that we can better improve the college, so we're very diligent in looking at that, and Dr. Bea and his team as well.  I'd like to welcome Aubrey Conover who is taking a new position as lead of campus vice presidents in his assignment, so thank you for joining us tonight. I'd also like to thank Tom Davis who had been temporarily taking over that position. So thank you for your time and effort, working on that. There are two areas of the college I'd like to congratulate, and one is PimaOnline and the other is the medical lab technology program. So PimaOnline received recognition at the Instructional Technology Council annual conference and won several awards. One of them is outstanding eLearning course design with Anne Huth, Noah Fay, Anh-Thu Phan, Francisco Reynoso, Steve Bayless, Marcos Aaliyah, and Clint Mossman. Also, they received the award for outstanding eLearning faculty, western region, with Vivian Knight, and then outstanding eLearning student, Clinton McCullop (phonetic). I think that's how you pronounce it. Then one final award they received was outstanding use of eLearning technology with Kimlisa Duchicela, Adam Baldry, and Brad Butler. So I'd like to congratulate PimaOnline and Michael Amick who is the vice president and the team that worked very hard to receive this recognition. So congratulations. Also, I'd like to celebrate the medical lab technology program under health professions with Don Martin as the dean. One of our students, Domonique Carter, achieved the highest score in the nation  for the American Society for Clinical Pathology certification, the exam that they took. I don't know if I'm supposed to repeat this, but his score was 957 out of 999, the best score in the country. We are very happy with his accomplishment. That's due to the faculty who taught and are really making this a robust program. That's Amee Rosales, Elyse Gayda, Cori Plumb, Ann Haber, the MLT students, and also the clinical preceptors and advisory committee. So congratulations to the health professions for their medical lab technology program as well. The month of December I had several activities. I won't share all of them but some of the highlights. Our student representative mentioned the Student Senate Town Hall where several of us were present there, and it was good to hear all of the representatives ask questions and some of the concerns, you know, safety, and then academics, all kinds of, a plethora of questions. It was a pleasure to be there, and I hope we can continue having those types of conversations, be it a Town Hall or at a Student Senate meeting too that I can visit. A few of us went to the mayor's inauguration. Also, I had a lunch meeting with Superintendent Jose Gastelum from Sunnyside, and we talked about strengthening our dual enrollment partnership. We had a tour of the health professions building that's being built at the West Campus with Senator Mark Kelly's staff. Marcy highlighted the athletics Hall of Fame event that took place at the West Campus. It was really exciting to see and to hear all these  athletes, former athletes, who came back and coaches and staff who are so grateful to Pima College and have steered them in the right direction and being successful in whatever career that they have chosen. It was really heartwarming. I also visited with our dual enrollment dean, James Palacios, Pueblo High School, where we met with faculty, staff, students, and parents and talked about dual enrollment and their successes. We're going to try to make a stronger connection with their honors program, Pima College's honors program, and since I sit on the board of U of A honors advisory board, also having a nice pathway to that. Yesterday in fact our acting provost, Jeff Thies, and myself we went to visit and had a meeting with the University of Arizona's interim provost, Ron Marx, and we talked about transfer opportunities and guided pathways and strengthening our partnership there, bringing the deans back together as we had in the past. We talked about the centers of excellence. He's very interested in the cybersecurity center of excellence, so he would like a tour of that. So we can talk about that. Upcoming on January 19, I will be at the ribbon or groundbreaking of the early childhood learning center with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. I'm very much looking forward to participating in that. Some updates I'd like to provide include the West Campus bike path that, Rebecca, you had brought up before. So Aubrey Conover has been working diligently with others at the college, including Joseph Mais, and Joseph Mais has contacted the city transportation  department to request vegetation encroaching on the bike path on Anklam to be addressed. He's asked for an examination as to whether or not widening of the path could be possible to be placed on a future agenda. So the primary issue that Pima is able to address is at the entrance of the West Campus off of Anklam. That's what we are working on. We are working with facilities to have a space assessment done and determine putting a designated bike path in the entry lanes coming into the campus. So facilities has approved the contract of painting the lanes, which we hope to be completed in the next four to six weeks. So I think they shared that with you, Rebecca, and you shared that with the Student Senate? Yeah, so that's the update regarding the bike path at West Campus. The other update I wanted to share with you is the Drachman properties work group. So Nina Corson has been leading that group with an outside facilitator, and they have had several meetings but two formal meetings. One that was held on the 15th off November. That's where we shared the charge and the directive from the board to the group as to what should be done and in a timely fashion, so that session was mainly brainstorming about funding resources and what are some of the options that can happen. Then just before the holiday break, on December 21, the work group met again and had a physical tour of the properties. Then January 24th, they are going to be meeting again and sharing  potential funding sources. So it's going very well. They have created subgroups, as well, and one of the members, committee members, Ken Scoville, has arranged a tour of two local facilities that have been renovated, Ghost Ranch and Monterey Court. This is going very well. The group is wanting to ask the board, the work group is asking if under three weeks if they could have a bit of an extension to complete their work. The reason is because the Futures Conference is taking place on March 8th. They'd like to incorporate that into the agenda of the Futures Conference, and the Futures Conference, as you know, is community members in business and industry, K-12 sector, all of our partners that we have throughout the community, to get their input as well. So I don't know if this is the appropriate time to -- >> MS. THERESA RIEL: We'll talk later about that. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: Okay. We'll talk later about that. So those are my updates. Since I spoke about the Futures Conference, the topics that we will be discussing are strategic priorities for 2024 and '25, equity and social justice priorities, possible relocation of PSESI, and as I mentioned, the Drachman properties. Also, I'd like for us to do an assessment of the centers of excellence that have been completed, and those are automotive, aviation, and cybersecurity. So we'd like input from the community because a lot of them are from the business and industry sector, and  our students have gone to work with them. So we want to see how we're doing in that sense. I think I am done with my report. Thank you very much. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Item 5 is the information items. I just want to talk briefly about 5.1, the proposed revisions to the board policy 1.25. Once again, it's already been mentioned, but thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and ideas with the board, because, you know, the more information we get, the better decisions we can make. This has been a long process. I introduced this board policy revision I think back last February just verbally and said, hey, can we get this going. In April, I actually had the papers that I shared with everybody, and it's taken a long time. I know that it's very important, and we are so appreciative for all of the different inputs from AERC, the Faculty Senate, the Staff Council, all of the different groups that have met to discuss this board policy. So over the next month, each of us will individually be pondering what we think is the best option for the college, and then we're planning on having discussion next month and voting on that next month. In the future, we want to have it happen way faster than the 9, 10, 11 months' timeline. Section item 5.2, it's a revision I brought up about board policies. We have one board policy that has information that's sort of superfluous. The extra words don't really matter, because at the  very end they say but the board doesn't have to do this with a majority vote. Well, that's true any time the board is making a decision. If we have a majority vote, we get to vote. No sense having all those extra words. It sort of sounds like the board isn't as good as it is, and it is nice to lift people up instead of put people down. Then another section in that same -- I meant to say bylaws. I hope I said bylaws. I'm talking bylaws. There is another section that says that the board will have members from a group that it's really hard to get a member from the temporary staff to be part of the board committees, and so we're going to also change that. Since we haven't had one and we don't have one, we're just going to remove those words from that too. Okay. Moving on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to pass the consent agenda? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: So moved. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Is there a second? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you, Dr. McLean. All in favor, say aye? (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to item 7, we have three action items. The first is delegating authority to execute a contract for an executive search  firm to conduct the chancellor candidate search process. Dr. McLean, do you have a motion for that? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: I move that the Interim Chancellor recommends the Governing Board -- well, actually, the Governing Board authorize the Interim Chancellor or designee to execute an agreement with Anthem Executive search firm recommended by the advisory committee to support the chancellor search process. Total costs are not expected to exceed the chancellor's level of contracting authority. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Is there a second? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any discussion? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: I'd just like to point out that the committee that we had put together has extensively studied this topic, looked at all available companies for the search process, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for all the hard work they've put in making this recommendation. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Yeah, I just want to echo that. Thank to you everyone on that committee. I agree. I had a chance to read not only the proposals but the videos from the presentations they did to watch those, and I concur with their recommendation that Anthem seems like the way for us to go. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you for the people in procurement who also helped to get all that done. Thank you for sending us the videos. We appreciated being able to be part of that process. So  thank you. Any other discussion? Hearing no discussion, I will call for a vote. All in favor say aye? (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Item 7.2, discussion and possible modifications to the Governing Board vote to develop options for the Drachman properties. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair? We gave this committee a tremendous task, and it's taken a little bit of time to put together the committee, but as I understand it, the makeup of the committee well represents the community as well as architectural and structural and even political members of our community. They have been working diligently, but I think in light of what I have heard, I'm wondering if they need a little bit more time in order to get a recommendation to us. I'd like to ask whomever wants to respond how much time do you need to get this done in a very, very comprehensive way? >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: I'm going to ask Nina Corson, who is leading the work group, to share that information with the board. >> NINA CORSON: I think we're asking to bring the recommendations to the board on April 3 instead of the March board meeting. As our Interim Chancellor mentioned, we'd like to also be able to get wider input from the Futures Conference, provide a little information at that venue, as well. I know that we have these working adults who we have asked to  come together and do work. You know, we have asked them to do this work in good faith. There is a neighbor right across the street. You can see her house from the campus. The whole group really just feels like they would like these three extra weeks to do a really good job for the board and the community. So that is what we are requesting. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, in light of that request, I move that the board extend the report deadline to April 3. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Second. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Any other discussion? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I'd like to have a discussion. Okay. I guess primarily we have been dealing with these properties for a long time, and so the April extension to include more people and present it at the Futures Conference, I would say that if you don't have the money to do it now, we shouldn't even be considering this. Where's the money? Does the taxpayer want to pay for this? So do you have anything -- I'm sorry, do you have any possibility of having -- >> NINA CORSON: I thought these were rhetorical questions. I'm sorry. Yeah, there are a couple of the members that do have some realistic suggestions for the college. I don't disagree with you that the college has been dealing with this for a very long time, but  this particular group has not. They are trying very hard to come up with some reasonable suggestions for the college. Some of the proposals -- they're not going to bring one proposal. They're going to bring multiple. Some of them may involve preserving some of the existing structures. Some may not. May involve knocking them down and doing something a little different in terms of public/private partnerships, or the city with the Thrive in the 05 initiatives. I mean, I would like to give this group time to flesh out what they're working on. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, I guess my point is the original proposal or estimate was that it was going to cost the college approximately $34 million to renovate these properties, and I can only imagine with costs escalated it's going to be probably closer to 40. Now, in my view, this is just my opinion, $40 million, and I may be overexaggerating, but do we really have community engagement not only to give us proposals but the money to do this job? >> NINA CORSON: Well, we will see. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. It's just been very frustrating to continue to deal with this, and it's a liability to the college to have these vacant buildings. >> NINA CORSON: I 100% agree. I work at the Downtown Campus, and every week we are having to clean up some mess or another that is happening in those facilities with people breaking in. It's an  eyesore for the neighbors. I think some of the neighbors don't really care what we do with it. They just want us to do something nice with it, because right now what we are doing is unacceptable. Yeah. Thank you. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So Maria, just to give you a little bit of support, when I thought about those possibilities for those properties, I either saw demolishing, like, the two on the far west side, and then when Mr. Silvyn and Dr. Dolores Duran-Cerda and I met with two people from the city, the four of them were just brainstorming, we sat for about, I don't know, 55 minutes and they came up with so many great ideas. Not necessarily to preserve the buildings. Possibly. You know, there was talk of that too. But also just the amazing opportunities for buildings that could be student-focused and success-driven. It was just really, really a positive experience to be there. I didn't offer anything. My brain doesn't work that way. But I'm sure that Nina's committee has people that are doing that. So hopefully, if we allow them to have this extra three weeks -- by the way, the board meeting would have been on the 18th. This is actually less than three weeks. I think it's 20 days, I counted. I think that if they can utilize the Futures Conference to even get more ideas, I think that that will be beneficial. And who knows who else we'll touch as far as ideas about funding sources. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair? In lieu of what Member Garcia  has just stated, it's my recollection that we had instructed the committee to report to the chancellor and then the chancellor would make a decision on selecting an option, and in lieu of the concern that's been expressed as far as finances and the impact to possible student programs, I think that it would make more sense to have them make that recommendation directly to the board, seeing as any expenditure of district funds has to be done by the board anyway, so I would move to amend our previous direction to that committee and have them make the recommendations to the Governing Board as opposed to the chancellor. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I second it. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: So the previous -- I don't know if this is a point of order. But the previous motion doesn't do what you're describing. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So let me interrupt. Can we combine those two motions? So to give the direction for the committee to report their four decisions or eight decisions, whatever it is, to the board and to extend the time for three more weeks so they report to us in the April board meeting, that's the two parts of your amended motion? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: That's correct. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. Does that make sense? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Yeah. I mean, I guess my only point would be I think the current motion already does that, so what the current motion says is that if anything involves expending additional college dollars, it has to come here. But if it's an option that doesn't,  just raising 100% noncollege dollars, it wouldn't require us to approve it to go forward. So I have no problem with changing it to that. I think it just doesn't change anything. I think it's the same outcome either way. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I think what the thought was that if the chancellor approves something that the board isn't willing to fund, it would be one less step that we have to do. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I'm just saying that the current motion doesn't give her the authority to do that, so she can't approve something that the board isn't willing to fund. The only way she could approve it is if no college funds were used for it. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I would rather have the board make that decision. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I don't have any problem with restating it. I just don't think it changes anything from the original motion. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. Calling for the vote, all in favor, say aye? (Ayes.) >> MS. THERESA RIEL: This new motion that the board will approve which option, and that we're going to extend the time for the committee to get their work done to deliver to us to the April 3rd board meeting. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Aye. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I think I had a different understanding of  what the motion was based on how you just restated it. Nay on that. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Do I need to restate it clearer? Dr. McLean, did I state that correctly what you were trying to, what you did say? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Well, two things. You said it earlier. One is that the committee would make their recommendations directly to the board as opposed to the chancellor, and that we would extend the deadline for that report to be to April 3rd. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. So Dr. McLean, did you vote -- of course you voted. >> DR. WADE McLEAN: In the affirmative. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I did, too. Mr. Gonzales, are you still with us? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I am, and I said yes. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Okay. So the motion passes 4 to 1. Then our last item in section 7, the discussion and possible direction for the City of Tucson Sun Tran bus fare funding. Is Dr. -- >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: We will be a tag team. Dr. Bea, if you'd like to give the background information, please. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Good evening again. Let me just do sort of a quick-and-dirty summary of how we got to where we're at and sort of where we're at with the bus transportation issue. So the city received federal COVID money, and when they received  that money, they made a decision during the COVID time frame to provide fare-free transportation for the bus services. Now that that money is phasing out, the city is in a bind where what they would like to do is continue fare-free bus transportation, but the problem is they don't have a revenue stream to support it. One of the things they looked at doing was look at different constituents and see if they could have those constituents share some of the cost burden to be able to retain fare-free transportation for the bus services. This is going back in time, April-ish last year, if I remember right, where they provided us information to -- it was to Pima College, to the University of Arizona, and to TUSD, those three jurisdictions only, received letters saying here's your allocation based on this methodology that we put together. We would like you to basically support the bus system by providing these costs, and that would provide some revenue that would enable the city to provide fare-free transportation. We turned around and said, okay, there are some problems. One is the methodology you used has a lot of problems. Basically they attributed to Pima College every person who got on or off the bus within a quarter mile of any of our campuses, and everyone who got on or off at East or West Campuses because those are end locations. Now, a lot of people will drive/use our parking lots and they aren't connected to the college, so one of the things we did, along with TUSD and the University of Arizona, was point out to the city,  hey, there is some problems, we can't do what you're saying. It is not within our legal jurisdiction to be providing bus transportation. We could provide support for bus transportation for our employees or students, but we would have to know that we were paying for that, and that would have to be a budgeted expense. Same thing with TUSD and University of Arizona. They had the same problem. So what essentially was happening is the city was looking to take their burden of operating costs for bus transportation and push it to other entities, other jurisdictions. So just to kind of give you why that would legally be a problem, is that essentially our taxpayers who represent Pima County, not just the bus locations in Pima County and just in the city, that people, so people as far out in the rural areas of Pima County would be then essentially subsidizing the bus transportation in town. So we pointed out to the city, we can't do this, we can't do it the way you're talking about it. We're happy to talk to you about what you're trying to do. We're not anti-supporting fare-free transportation. We are not pro or against it. We understand what you're trying to do. So as a result of that, those three entities were invited to serve on a committee, a transportation committee that was tasked with coming up with short-term solution, midterm, and long-term solutions. So we worked with that in good faith. Again, they were representatives from TUSD, University of Arizona, and from Pima on that committee. I think it's still going but it's kind of phasing  out. Essentially the recommendation from that group was because of all the problems that we pointed out, because of the realities, the legal restrictions, the problematic methodology that they were using, this isn't a way to do it. We're not against the idea of helping to support it, but it has to be tied directly to people who are connected to the college using the service, and we'd have to be able to show that. The recommendation from the group, just to give you the inside baseball part of this, the recommendation from the group was really looking at creating a taxing entity, a taxing jurisdiction, that would then take this on, provide the revenue necessary to provide this kind of support, et cetera, et cetera. There turned out to be a legal problem with that recommendation, and then when it went back to the council, again, I think the three educational entities became the targets of the frustration of the city having a problem and their perceiving that we're not trying to help, which is actually not accurate. We're trying to provide solutions, trying to help them clarify what the problems are with how they're looking at it, but that's essentially where we're at. The idea, the city, the fares that they used to receive are in the neighborhood of $12 million. To give some context, they were trying to get the college to pay for about $500,000. We have never had any budget to provide support anywhere even remotely near that for transportation for students or employees.  TUSD and the U of A have some slightly different situations. The university has subsidized some bus transportation in the past, but they used parking revenues to offset that, so they have a revenue stream that helps offset that. TUSD provided some support for students and I think employees who used the bus transportation because it saved them money. So we're all the same and we all have slightly different situations, as well. All of those things have been said in that committee. Again, we have been working very collegially with that committee. Both Libby and I have been sitting on that group and explaining where we're coming from and trying to come up with solutions. Again, it's sort of an intractable problem and the fact that the college seems to be, the college, University of Arizona, and TUSD are pointed out as particular causes of the problem is not really what the situation is. The problem is that they want to provide fare-free transportation. They don't have a revenue stream to support it, and that's their problem. Again, we're happy to work with them and try and come up with solutions. That's where we're at. I will be open to any questions you may have. That's my perspective of where that thing is at. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: I mean, I guess this is kind of rhetorical, but just to confirm, I watched that city council meeting, and it was explicitly stated in there that Pima College, the U of A, and TUSD were recommending to the city that they reinstate fares and that if they, and again, this was stated in the meeting, I'm paraphrasing  slightly, and that if the city were to reinstate fares would be because we recommended to them that they reinstate fares. That just seems absurd to me, and just to validate that that is not what, at least per Pima College, that is not what we were recommending in our participation in those groups? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Right. And so I'll try and explain to you how what we could have said translated into that, and then you'll see that there is a pretty big gap between those two points. So when I was saying the one thing that -- legally, with our jurisdiction, we can support educational expenses at the college. If they provide fare-free transportation, there is no costs that are tied to the students or the employees who might be using the fares. So the idea with it is, well, without knowing what the fares would be, we would be hard-pressed to be able to identify that that's an appropriate cost for the college or the university or TUSD to take on. We certainly, not one of us, recommended -- it was really the, hey, we need to have something that's tied directly to our constituents that we would understand that cost, and that got translated into we want fares to come back. Fares would give you -- right, fares give you what those costs might be, if you can tie it directly to the students, but it certainly, we weren't advocating for that. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I remember when I was teaching at the East Campus, I took the bus. I paid my own fares, and I think it was 50 or 75 cents each direction. Took the 8 down Broadway and caught the  17 down Pantano or I would walk a half mile up to 5th Street and take the No. 3 because it would go all the way there. At that time there were a lot of students that took the bus, and mind you, I was only on one bus getting there and one bus leaving, but I would see, you know, one or two dozen students leaving the East Campus. So I do think we have a lot of students that need public transportation, because they don't have a car, or they might be too young to drive, you know. At that time, I'm pretty sure, and I don't know how the college did it, but the college bought bus passes, reduced-fare bus passes for our students. So that shows that the college does support public transportation and the City of Tucson and Sun Tran. But what you're saying is that with it being fare, there is not anything legally you can or the college can purchase to subsidize the students with this fare. So I think it was unfair that the college would be shown in that light of not caring about the Sun Tran system and not caring about our students. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Right. And in fact on multiple occasions we talked about how much we do support public transportation and are there at the table trying to help them come up with some solutions. So I agree with that. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I have one more question. I was looking back in my book, because I write everything down so I don't forget it. This only goes back through June, but I remember Former  Chancellor Lee Lambert talking to us, and I'm not sure if it was the entire board or if it was just the chair and the vice-chair, but he told us that there was no way that the college could spend that kind of money that was being requested to do that for the reasons that you have just detailed. So I'm wondering why that wasn't communicated back then to them so we could have staved off some of this miscommunication now? Anyway, just wondering. >> DR. DAVID BEA: I would only be speculating, because I think that that has been explained and stated. And in particular, when it also was happening last year was after tuition had been set, and there was an additional problem where it was so late in the game that the only revenue source that we could have adjusted would have been tax-based. So there is the ability for us to create a student-based fee that would be a public transportation support fee of some sort. It's not that we can't do something like that. It's just we couldn't do it in that time frame, and for that then to be turned around and pushed directly onto the taxpayers is when that becomes completely inappropriate. Because again, and you take it to the different extremes is that our jurisdiction is not the same as Sun Tran, right? We have taxpayers who go as far out west, almost to California, right? And they get zero benefit whatsoever out of this. So it's not an appropriate expense for us to be pushing to our taxpayers.  >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Would that also be inappropriate because not all of our students take the bus and all students would be assessed that fee, which is also... >> DR. DAVID BEA: And then other students would not -- and then you have that problem, yeah. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So there is quite a few places of -- >> DR. DAVID BEA: There is lots of problems. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Yeah. Thank you. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I just wanted to make a statement. You know, I have been on this board now for five years, and with the signage that we have at the Downtown Campus, which was the city that donated it to us so that we could pay the expense on that maintenance, and now the Drachman properties that they want to keep, and now we're talking about bus fares, when is the city going to stop trying to take our educational dollars and use them for their services? I want to thank you for participating in that meeting. You know, you've done a great job. I know you're doing a good job as far as representing us, but I just think that it's wrong for other entities to try to take what little money we have -- we don't get any funding through the state. You know, it's all on taxes. Our taxpayers are paying for education and tuition. It's wrong for them to make these requests. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Just to echo something that Chair Riel said,  I think it would be perfectly appropriate for us if the city, based on their own decision-making, not at all at our urging, decided to reinstate fares, for us to purchase bus passes or whatever for our students that needed them, I think that's completely appropriate for us to do that, that we do that based on the utilization. I agree with what Maria said, too. Any kind of just sort of blanket underwriting doesn't make sense to me for all the reasons that are articulated here; nor would that student fee approach, because that essentially creates like a hidden tax that they're wanting us to implement on our students to fund public transportation. That doesn't make sense to me either. Certainly as a college, I think we could step up to support our students or our staff, faculty, administrators if fares were to be reinstated. Just to be clear, that would not be our decision that fares would be reinstated. Do you need, or I don't know if this is for Interim Chancellor Duran-Cerda or Dr. Bea, do you need like a motion or resolution or something from us that kind of codifies what our position is? I also don't want to jump ahead of Luis or Wade if they have anything, but would that be helpful in terms of taking it back to the city and saying, look, this is the parameters that we can work under, this is what the board decided, or no? >> DR. DAVID BEA: My view, and Dolores, you can certainly weigh in too, I think that's up to you as the elected officials -- I don't thing it's necessary we are relaying back -- you know, it made it  sound like the board wasn't apprised. I obviously have had conversations with the board about this issue and explained it, which they also have heard at least, you know, at my level through that committee. You know, we reassured them that the chancellor and the board are familiar with what the issues are and with what our approach is. I think it's up to you on whether you want to make some statement to the city. I'll leave that to you. I don't think it's necessary to communicate from the committee's standpoint. >> DR. DOLORES DURAN-CERDA: I'd just like to add that prior to the winter break, I did send a letter to the mayor and to the city council members, clarifying our stance and opening up a conversation, a window if they would like to continue the conversation of clarification. But I think I agree it's up to the board's pleasure what they want to do. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I don't really know if there is a motion -- Luis, did you have something to say? I'm sorry. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I just want to say that as we have heard the comments, it is a city burden, but I don't think it's for Pima Community College, I don't think it's an appropriate expense for all of us to undertake, especially if it's going to be impacting the community, more additional fees or whatever we need to do. But I think this request, I'm not happy in reference to the request for the U of A, for TUSD, and for Pima Community College to be addressing a burden that's a city burden that they want us to do,  to resolve it. At this time I would say no. I think it's their problem. I think they also have a full responsibility to address this and find solutions for it. I would comment no. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I don't really know if there is a specific motion we can make, anyway. But, I mean, I want to say that I believe that everybody on the board and in administration and at Pima College, we support public transportation, because we know that many of our students can't get to school without it. So we definitely want to be working with the city to make sure that whatever they do decide is a positive decision for our students and for the residents of Pima County. And we do recognize -- by the way, we're facing our own budget. You know, we all want lots of pretty raises and, you know, to finish our centers of excellence. We have a lot of things that we want to spend our money at the college. So I think that -- I'm sure that somebody is going to be listening to this and they can share it, and of course we can all share it with our own city council members, right, because they need to know from us how we feel, but I think it's an inappropriate, sounds actually like it's illegal, anyway, for us to use taxpayer dollars on spending for somebody else, some other institution's operational budget. Anyway... >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Yeah, FYI, I have communicated with both the city council members that overlap District 4 and have made that  pretty clear too. The other thing that was stated in that meeting, and again, I'm paraphrasing, not direct quoting, but there was this implication that also kind of rubbed me the wrong way that the representatives from Pima College were sort of just some administrators and the board didn't know, and if we knew we'd be outraged. It just was ridiculous. So I hope if anybody does take something away from this, I think I'm hearing pretty -- we haven't heard from Dr. McLean, but at least four of us that are pretty solidified in supporting what our administrators who participated in these meetings have been sharing, that the board concurs with that position. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Dr. McLean, did you want to weigh in? >> DR. WADE McLEAN: I'm supportive of what the administration has done up to this point in time and would hope that they continue to act as good neighbors. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Okay. So thank you. Thanks to Libby Howell, too, for participating on the committee. We really appreciate you doing that for the college. Item No. 8, any requests for future agenda items? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Can we have a special meeting to vote on board policy 1.25? >> MR. GREG TAYLOR: Rather than at the next board meeting, you mean? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Before. It would only be that one item.  >> DR. WADE McLEAN: Madam Chair, we're going to be in a meeting all day tomorrow. We have the board meeting set for our regular March meeting. We're going to have lots of responsibilities here in the next couple of months. I think we have enough meetings. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: So I agree with you that it would be nice to get this done, just to move it forward so that we know what's happening, but at the same time, I don't think there is anything that us voting on board policy 1.25 right now will impact the college in not doing its work for the Meet and Confer process and everything like that. So it would be nice to get it done, but would you mind... >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Well, I think that I would push to try to get this done, because it would only take probably what, 10 minutes, 15? We could do it on Zoom. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I don't see a lot of support for it, Maria. Sorry. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: All right. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Thank you. Any others? Okay. So then we'll adjourn -- >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I have a question, I have a comment. Maria, did you mention that you wanted this on the agenda for next month or to have a special meeting first? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I wanted a special meeting, but they're not willing to do that. (Laughter.) Nobody is in agreement. That's okay.  >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Luis, all I was saying is that we have a lot of things already on the calendar, and, you know, there is nothing that the college can't do moving forward with Meet and Confer and, you know, contract talks and all of that, because what this is going to change is at the very end of all of that operation, that operation isn't changing at all. So I think we can wait. Is that all right with you, Luis? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Well, that will be fine, but I think the sooner the better, I think as soon as we can. It's been a while. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: I agree. From now on we will have a deadline date instead of saying six months. We're not going to say that either. We are going to say a date from now on. We'd like to have this finished by, and then a specific date, so we can all write that in our calendars and make sure it's happening. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes. >> MS. THERESA RIEL: Then I'm going to adjourn the meeting. Thank you, and have a wonderful month. (Adjournment.)  ********************************************* 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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