********************************************* 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. ********************************************* April 1, 2020 Governing Board. (Virtual Meeting.) >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Good afternoon. I'd like to call to order the Wednesday, April 1, 2020 regular Governing Board meeting. This is a virtual meeting. Following the guidance of public health officials, the college has closed its facilities to the public to allow only restricted access to essential personnel and promote social distancing and limit the spread of the Coronavirus. Accordingly, the Governing Board will conduct this meeting through remote technology only. Members of the public interested in following these proceedings are on our Zoom webinar. You can also dial in to the numbers posted on our notice page. Regarding public comment and call to the audience, in order to limit the spread of Coronavirus, the Governing Board has suspended its normal public comment process. For the time being, Governing Board meetings will be conducted virtually. Anyone wishing to submit a comment for consideration by the Governing Board should do so in writing using the e-mail address pcc-boardstaff@pima.edu. Comments received before 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 will be shared with the board members and included with the meeting records. Comments received after the deadline will be shared with a board member and including in records of the next meeting. Our first item on the agenda is our roll call. Mr. Silvyn? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Demion Clinco. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Present. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Meredith Hay. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Here. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Mark Hanna. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Present. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Maria Garcia? Maria Garcia? Luis Gonzales? Luis Gonzales? Mr. Chair, so at the moment, yourself obviously, Meredith Hay and Mark Hanna are present but Maria Garcia and Luis Gonzales are not present. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I believe we have given them a telephone conference call to call in, as well. We are having a little bit of technical challenges, but as they join the meeting, if they could announce themselves and we will mark it in the record. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: If I might make another suggestion, if we don't hear from them, why don't we just be sure to ask again right before we get consent agenda, which is the point in time where we would need their votes? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: That sounds terrific. Thank you very much, Mr. Silvyn. Our next item is our public comment and call to the audience, which we have already explained. Now we have remarks from the Governing Board. I would simply say to everybody within the college and on this call, thank you so much for your tireless work over the last few weeks in responding to this unprecedented crisis. The remarkable and impressive approach this institution has taken to really address and put the priority and focus on our students while protecting public health is inspiring and it's impressive and it serves as I think a model for not just institutions across this country who are grappling with this but for other organizations within our community. Thank to you everyone and thank you for being so patient as we go through many hiccups along the way. We know this is not easy, but we are incredibly appreciative for all of the work that everyone at every level of this institution is facing. To our students, we want to say we are so appreciative you are sticking with us. We want you to stay enrolled in classes and just be patient as we work through the hiccups with a quick alteration to this new modality and educational delivery. So thank you. Dr. Hay? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: Yes? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Do you have any remarks? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: No. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Mr. Hanna? >> MR. MARK HANNA: Yeah, I just agree with the chairman, and I would also like to, in addition, thank the chancellor personally for his updates and transparency and really getting the information out concerning the operation of the college during this very tough time. Thank you to the provost and everybody involved with faculty, both full-time and adjunct, who have adjusted to the situation. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I believe Board Member Garcia has joined the meeting as well as Board Member Gonzales. Maria, would you like to add any comments? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: You know, I didn't hear what you had before. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I just gave a general overview of appreciation to our institution and to our students and administration and faculty for the incredible job they are doing. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: And I'm going to agree with you, and I think the chancellor has done a very good job in leading the group, and you, as well, so thank you all, great team, everyone. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you. Mr. Gonzales? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I just want to follow up and say the same in reference to the leadership right now. I think it's a big time of need, and the operative word is working together, and I think the college has demonstrated that. I do thank all the students and also the faculty in this crisis that we have right now, doing the best we can. Thanks. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. Next is item 2, our reports. We have limited administration reports. The first is an update from Tom Davis, chief of staff. It looks as if Mr. Davis was dropped from the call. Let's go ahead and move to the financial implications with Dave Bea. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Good afternoon. Chairperson Clinco, members of the board, Chancellor Lambert, colleagues and guests. I'd like to take a few minutes to brief the board on the impact of the COVID-19 and the college's response in terms of the immediate financial impacts, midterm financial impacts and longer-term economic concerns that we all need to be aware of as we go through this difficult time. I have a brief presentation or I have a presentation that's a fairly short presentation in terms of the number of slides. So I'll put that up, and then I'll walk through the various components of the projections and what the impacts are that we are talking about. So one second. And everybody can see that okay? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. I can. >> DR. DAVID BEA: So first let's start with some of the immediate implications, and that is, let's look at what the situation looks like right now, how is the crisis affecting the college's financial situation, and what's the outlook for the rest of this fiscal year. So the first is this is sort of, I think, going to be a presentation that sort of gets progressively less positive as I go through it. I'll try and retain a little bit of hope and stuff as we go into the longer-term projections. But the best and most hopeful and optimistic views really has to do with the immediate outlook, which is that the college is in really strong financial shape, that our projections for this year remain very positive and stable. That's because of the situation, and we have talked about the board with the different projections for the budget, and also showing the monthly financial reports. So through February, we have an increase in net assets of about $26 million. That's again because of the diligence that we have had in reducing our expenditures over the last number of years, and we are expecting to finish the year, again, in a very favorable way. The primary reason for that is property tax revenues, which is our primary revenue source, are projected to meet expectations. Property taxes, generally speaking, are very reliable. The first payment came in in the October/November time frame. The second payment is coming in now in sort of the April, and it will be through this month of April and into May. We have received, I think, 75% of what our total expectation is for the year, and when we talked with the county last week, they aren't -- they weren't seeing at that time any significant slowdown, and one of the reasons is because a good share of property taxes are actually paid throughout the year and go to the mortgage, to the lenders, and then get distributed in the two payments to the county and then get distributed to the college. To give the board some context, if we went back to fiscal crisis back in '07, '08, '09 when mortgages were defaulting at a significant rate in a way that we hadn't seen in years and years, the college's revenues from property taxes were still quite stable throughout even the darkest period of time. I think that we are getting something like 97, 98% of our expected revenues, and then we'd get 100% of the revenues. There is a little bit of a delay that happens in terms of when those receipts come in, and that's because the liability of the tax, the tax liability remains with the property. So whoever owns the property has the obligation to pay the property taxes owing, and if someone defaults on a property and it reverts back to a bank, the bank is responsible for paying that, and then similarly, if the property is sold, the new owner would be responsible for picking up the unpaid amount. So that's in a normal situation. I'll get into, when we get further on in the presentation possibility, this not looking like anything we have seen before, but generally speaking with how far we are in the year, our biggest revenue source is in good shape. Similarly, our second-biggest revenue source, which is tuition revenue, 90% of our expected tuition has been received to date. That's because most of our education has started, and we are midway through the spring, but students pay up front for the classes. The only remaining revenues are summer, and that outstanding revenue is in the neighborhood of probably $1 million or something like that. So it's relatively small in the grand scheme of things. When we are starting to get concerned about what more immediate impacts are going to be for revenues, there are some of our ancillary revenues that are going to be impacted proportionately in a very significant way. When you're talking about the overall size of our budget, they are not big revenue streams. We are talking about something like $13 million out of $170 million. However, they are going to be impacted significant, and we will talk about that in the next slide. But in terms of there are a couple of them that will be affected, that will affect the current year outlook, because we can see that either the college isn't able to provide the service for contract and noncredit instruction where we're not able to provide face-to-face, there will be revenue declines, and then another example would be some of the commissions and rents, things we receive because we are not open for business and not doing, having services on-site means that we won't be getting those revenues in. And then the last of that category is Proposition 301 money, which is sales tax income. That one is going to have a significant decrease, for sure, in that we are, I think, seeing an economic downturn unlike anything we have seen, even at the worst of the fiscal crisis. Sales tax revenue at that period went down about 25%. I think we might be looking at something that's more like a 50% reduction, and it might be in a matter of months. Now, it might turn back around more quickly than it did in the fiscal crisis, but there is going to be a very significant drop. Again, it's not a major revenue source in the grand scheme of things. It is about $2.6 million of our total budget. And the fact that we are in the final quarter, we're talking about with these smaller revenue sources about three months of negative downturn. But even if they have significant impacts, won't affect the total bottom line by a lot. Now, let's shift -- okay, so what are the costs related to how we're having to respond? And as you can see in the slide toward the bottom down here, there are increasing costs that we have incurred. There is essential employees, nonexempt employees, particularly the police and facilities folks have had increased overtime hours. We have had to add licenses and support costs to be able to provide remote delivery of our educational services. And then we're anticipating that there might be additional costs for extending courses that we are able to complete, particularly some of these face-to-face courses where we may end up in a month's time frame or two months' time frame , providing that finishing up those courses that need some face-to-face contact, but we may incur some additional costs related to it. All told, I'd say we're expecting those additional costs to be probably between 1 and $2 million. The most significant thing is the shift in resources dramatically to manage the response. Again, I think the board has made some very nice statements earlier about just how extraordinary the effort has been at the college. I'm going to echo that. I'm blown away on a daily basis at how effectively our employees have been able to redeploy to their home, provide services that they have never provided before effectively, those kinds of things. A lot of those aren't coming at additional costs. They are just shifting those resources and shifting our energies in that way. So when we're talking about those additional costs of a million or $2 million I think at the high side, it's also important to note that we're going to actually have some expense reductions that are sort of going to counterbalance those losses or those increased costs. Travel, if you look at a typical year, our travel expenses from March through June would be in the neighborhood of $600,000. Since we have turned off the ability to travel, those costs will go down to about 0, for example. Similarly, our utilities will drop. Some of our supply costs will drop. So it's not going to have a huge financial impact immediately, and given how strong our position going into this, we'll be able to manage throughout the rest of this fiscal year in a strong way. So with that, I'll pause there before I move into the next year and ask if the board has any questions about the immediate costs. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Dave, I just want to reask a question in a public forum now about any advice on any immediate action we would need to take for this fiscal year. You have explained that we are in good shape, but are there any things that we need to do immediately what comes to mind ongoing construction, anything that we would have to put the breaks on immediately to adjust to our new fiscal reality? >> DR. DAVID BEA: On the immediate standpoint, I would say no. In fact, what's often happening is because we're redeploying the resources, that some of these projects are slowing down a little bit, but as time goes on, it's now, as we sort of return it, move into more of a normalized state, I think what you're going to see is shifting back to getting those priorities moving along in a more normal way. But there will be some shifts in terms of which projects can actually be done, and Lee may want to add something to that. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Thank you. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Dr. Bea, could you tell us a little bit about, in terms of what you see specifically around spending to support the technological infrastructural needs that we need now but also that we will probably need into a longer-range sort of vision of how this institution can continue even over the summer? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Yeah, I mean, one of the things, and we'll get into this in the longer-range outlook, is there is a pretty significant shift of how the college is looking at operations. I think that with technology being as accessible as it is, what we are finding is people can shift their work home in a way that a few years ago was inconceivable. And what's going to happen, I think there is going to be a permanent shift in terms of how we look at work space, what can be done on-site, remote delivery, and quite honestly I think you will see it more on the academic side of student expectations in terms of what classes they will want to take in the future. I think you're going to see that where we're shifting from 25 to 30% online delivery of courses, I would be surprised if that doesn't jump to double that and become more than normal state for the college. And I think that that's going to be the case for the workplace, as well. I think that we are opening up doors now to having more remote working opportunities. I think that we can look at a future where our infrastructure needs, in terms of office space, is going to decrease, where we can either have shared space or people working remotely and have less need for as much space as we currently have. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Let me add to that, Demion. And that is as more and more of our effort is going to happen in this virtual and I would extend that hopefully to be online and not just be virtual, having our students have access to the tools that they're going to need to learn in that modality, is going to become increasingly important. So as we have had earlier conversations about getting a tablet in the hands of all of our students, we may need to think about how we accelerate that happening, because we know we have a segment. We don't know how many students at this point based on the national data. And we kind of pretty much parallel national data on a number of fronts. That's about 20 to 25% of our student body who do not have access to the appropriate technology tools. So how do we get them access to that? So I think that's going to be a big issue going forward, and the college can't afford to buy everybody their own tablet or laptop. So how do we pay for that? But I think if we don't provide that access, it will impact not only learning for individuals but it will have an impact on our enrollment, because folks won't have access. >> DR. DAVID BEA: In terms of some of the more immediate costs, adding Wi-Fi coverage to a broader range of our parking lots, things like that, in the grand scope of our budget, they are relatively small. It's just shifting where we may have purchased more lab computers to refresh the lab computers, it's shifting some of those resources to provide that what is a more critical need right now. And I don't think that's going to come at a big sacrifice long-term. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Questions from any of the other board members for Dr. Bea or Chancellor Lambert? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I think one of the things that I'd like to add is that with this virus going around, they have mentioned the fact that the governors and the federal government is looking at increasing Internet access and wide band. So I guess we just need to find out more about that. One thing is the tablets. Another thing is for them to have the service, because that's an additional expense the students may not have. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Maria, to your point, this is why we have to kind of balance all of this out, because some of the reasons why they don't have the tools is because they don't have access to the Internet for which they would be using the tools from home. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Right. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: So as this next -- if there is, and hopefully there would be another stimulus bill that does focus on the infrastructure pieces, which some of that's going to be about getting broadband access out to more of our rural communities and other communities who don't have that access, then it opens up the potential for the tools. Now, the other part of that is we've got to make sure that we get the tools in the hands of the students. You'll hear Tom talk about this when he presents is one of the projects we have been working on is expanding Wi-Fi access in our parking lots. So if someone had a laptop or a tablet device, they could come to our parking lot, and then they would get access that way even if they don't have it at home. But also, remember the libraries, my understanding, have also opened up their parking lot to have Wi-Fi access through that. So you're seeing, you know, the willingness to open up access where we can open it up, and then that's why the tools piece becomes important in terms of them having the proper tablet or laptop devices >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Great. Thank you. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I just want to make a comment. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Go ahead. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: With reference to laptops, I think we also need to look at approaching the private sectors. An example, Dell and those people that make these laptops in reference to really helping not only within our community college but the whole state, community colleges, to have more accessibility or getting donations from them, too. I think we need to approach the private sector. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Thank you. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Shifting gears to the midterm outlook, and I wanted to sort of show it in the context of a risk matrix where you look at the likelihood on one axis, so is an event or is -- is an event either positive or negative, unlikely, or certain. Then is the impact of that going to be minor to severe and color-coating things so that I can sort of draw attention to a handful of factors when we're looking at the fiscal year '21 outlook. So that's essentially the matrix. In a normal circumstance, in a normal year, I would say the college outlook and various risk factors are in the areas that I'm talking about here, like green to yellow with a little bit of red risk. In extreme situations, we are now moving into this kind of a world, and you're reading about that. This isn't specific to the college. This is specific to the economic situation and the impacts of this crisis and how it's going to affect America, the world. And the college is sort of along for that negative ride, if you will. Okay. So looking at the short-term implications for fiscal year '21, so this is the budget year that we are working on now, we will have continued response expenses. Those are things that we have talked about, some of the education that may continue, may have some cost that is occur into the latter part of the summer, which would mean that it would affect the fiscal year '21. I think we can have expectations that there is going to be some of that immediate response costs into fiscal year '21, because this virus appears to be something that may be around for some time, and we may have mitigation factors that we are going to have to respond to. So in terms of the grand budget, overall budget, not a major concern, but definitely not a really dark green, by any stretch. It will cost money, and we'll have to be able to respond to that. Investment earnings is one that's going to have a big impact eventually. Just to let you know that the fed switching to their interest rates down to 0% will have an effect on the college's investments. The college can only invest in fixed instruments where restricted by statute, which I guess we can say is there is a silver lining there that we weren't hit by some of the equity declines that happened with the stock market. However, when the fed turns the interest rate to 0, eventually our interest rates that we're able to get will move in that direction. Now, I have some good news with this. Yeah, was there a question? Okay. There is some good news here which is that we essentially have three major investment types. We have -- four if you count cash. We have cash, we have investments in the local government investment pool, that's a state investment pool. We have a short-term and long-term investments with RBC, which is our investment firm. We, in the course of the last number of, in fact, in the last months but in the last couple of years have shifted more of our investments toward our longer-term pool, and that's actually going to mitigate some of the immediate losses that we otherwise would have expected. So as an example that expectations for the LGIPs, they are presently, last month that they have online, the returns on that money was about 1.7%. It's very likely in the next couple of months that that will drop down to maybe 0.2% in terms of what annualized returns are going to be. We are in a much better shape, our short term, what we are looking at in the course of the next year is our investments will drop about 16% in our short-term, which is about $15 million in investments, and because we shifted to the long-term, which is more of a one- to five-year horizon, the decrease we are expecting to the next fiscal year is actually down to about only, only down about 4%. That's the large majority of our investments. That will shift -- so that's a total loss of about $150,000 in expected earnings that again is not terrible for next year, but on the further horizon, that short term will go down 21% by fiscal year '22 and the long term will go down about 12%. So this is going to be something that for the foreseeable future, our returns on our investments will be declining. Moving down the line, and this one is one of the biggest worries to me, Prop 301, which is sales tax based revenue for workforce programs, we receive about $2.6 million of that kind of revenue. This is going to be something that with the economic downturn will have an immediate impact. The fiscal crisis, Prop 301 sales tax revenues dropped about 25% over the course of about two or three years when the economy gradually went down. This is not a gradual down. The economy basically just turned off. So I would not be at all surprised if our sales tax revenue doesn't drop in half. Hopefully it will start turning back up from that, but that is an expected loss that will be, again, it will start this year, will go into next year, and probably last most of the year. The next couple are really dependent on whether the college stays (indiscernible) status and whether we are able to offer services on-site. Both contract revenue, some of our auxiliary services, food services, those kinds of things obviously aren't bringing in any money right now. Bookstore still is but not too much, and those revenues will be impacted, for sure, at the early part of the fiscal year. I talked about property taxes already. Now, the last one is the red dot, which is that a lot of these smaller revenue sources are outside of expenditure limitation, so they are those nontax-based revenues, what we call the good revenues. And the reality is that the cumulative impact may be something in the neighborhood of a loss of 7 to $8 million over the course of next year. That isn't devastating to the college's overall financial picture, because we typically, at this point, are expecting to have a net surplus of around $20 million. So we can cover that loss financially. The problem is that because those are outside of expenditure limitation, and we are having the fiscal year '21 where we are dropping down to that $87 million expenditure limit number, we have a compounding problem where what will happen is our budget as we have been building it is structured to be at about $87 million of expenditure limit expenses. Because these expenses or these revenues are outside of expenditure limitation and they are going down by 7 or $8 million, we don't have good revenue to cover those expenses. So it will look like, rather than our budget is set to be $87 million for EL purposes, it will be 7 to $8 million higher than that. And that immediate concern we are dealing with with the state. We are getting together with the other community colleges to make a pitch to the legislature and to the state to try and get some relief for fiscal year '21 so that this doesn't have an unintended consequence where we have the revenues coming in from the property tax side but we don't have the capacity to expend it on the important things that we would like to do from an operational standpoint. Next, just going down quickly, enrollment is the most uncertain of all of these. How will enrollment bounce back? With the outlook on an unemployment being dire, to say the least, will students who -- will people who lose their jobs come back to education? Can we provide that opportunity for students? Will the federal government relief efforts provide enough support for people to come back into college and higher education? I think we're positioning ourselves really well to be able to handle that, but it's a really unknown guess at this point how students or how our enrollments will be affected by this crisis. We are doing what we can in terms of ability to pay concerns. The board has an action item later to look at eliminating the payment plan fee for the summer term. That's one small effort. There is a number of things we are doing. Operationally, that's the one that the board needs to act on to reduce that or to not charge a fee for students to enroll in payment plan so they can spread out their payments over the course of the summer without paying what is really a moderate fee of $10, but anything matters at this point. So with that, I'll say if the board has any questions about fiscal year '21 -- we are also scheduling later this month where we are having an intensive study session where we talk more about these issues and how to approach the development of fiscal year '21 budget, but that's sort of the early look at what the issues are. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Mr. Hanna? >> MR. MARK HANNA: Dr. Bea, on the last item, the student ability to pay concerns, you're talking about immediately, right? Because we already have most of their tuition and you're not talking about going forward, right? >> DR. DAVID BEA: Again, when I put this presentation together, it was before the federal relief package came out, which does provide a fair amount of support for prospective students. I think the news is pretty favorable on that front. I put this back before, because the reality is this economic downturn is unlike the fiscal crisis. It is going to be deep and impactful, and it will affect people's discretionary income in ways that we have not seen before. That's the other factor I wanted to include in this. There is some big economic uncertainty and worries out there, for sure. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So I would say there are two things and I will see if there are any other questions. One, like, let's, Chancellor Lambert, put the full weight of the institution behind getting expenditure limit relief. I think that's the first thing on a legislative and political standpoint. Anything we can do to achieve that will be, as Dr. Bea points out, significant. The second is to Mr. Hanna's point, anything we can do to, you know, lessen the impact on students, as flexible as we can be in our policies. I mean, I have already heard from one student who withdrew towards the end of February because she was already being impacted because she was in the service industry. Her hours were already being impacted, so she withdrew from the institution. So if we can have a look-back period and really sort of comprehensively look at students who may have been impacted and figure out ways to support them with their educational goals particularly now. But I think anything we can do to lessen the impact on our students, the better. Mr. Gonzales? Ms. Garcia? Dr. Hay? Any last questions before we move to the next presentation? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: No. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: No questions. >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: No. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. Dr. Bea, we look forward to the more in-depth study session to better understand -- >> DR. DAVID BEA: There is another slide, but I think we will be happy to talk more -- I'm not going to get into it right now, I don't think there is any need to, but it gets into the longer-term implications, and we will talk in more detail with the board about that at the upcoming study session. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. Much appreciated for your work. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Thank you, Dr. Bea. Also, I wanted to make note of your employees who have made sacrifice to come in and take care of payroll and other issues that were of pressing matters. So thank you to your employees, as well. >> DR. DAVID BEA: Thank you. I will definitely pass that on. They are doing amazing work, everybody. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. Next item is the update from Tom Davis, the chief of staff. Are you there? >> SPEAKER: I'm here. Can you hear me? All right. Board Chair Clinco, members of the Governing Board, Chancellor Lambert, fellow employees, friends of Pima. I'm Tom Davis, chief of staff of the college. It's an honor to be here with you this afternoon to briefly give you an update on our COVID-19 efforts. On March 11, I outlined our efforts to ensure the college had a plan to best protect our students, employees here at Pima, where we looked at scenarios to handle the outbreak to where we are now, moving instruction to an online and/or virtual environment, in our basic premise on our planning efforts is to minimum harm to our students while balancing their as well as our employees' safety and security. Additionally outline the need to be as flexible as the situation develops. None of that has changed, but as expected, most plans do not survive first contact. Ours is no exception. But I'm proud to say our employees have risen to the challenge and have done exceptional work in transitioning and adapting to this new reality. First let me lay out the reality and some of our efforts to operate in that reality. As you're aware, as of noon, there are approximately 925,000 reported cases worldwide with approximately 46,000 deaths. Here in the United States, we have just topped over 200,000, about 210,000 cases with just over 4,600 reported deaths with 1,100 of those deaths reported yesterday and this morning. Here in Arizona, there are just over 1,400 reported cases with 29 reported deaths. 217 of those cases are here in Pima County with six reported deaths. Most of those cases and deaths have happened since I talked to you last on the 11th. These statistics make it more imperative that we all follow social distancing and the governor's stay-at-home directive. My point to you, this is a very real threat. It is here and we are taking this seriously. The chancellor has been very clear in his guidance. The safety of our students and employees and our community comes first. From a leadership standpoint, the ELT is meeting daily as well as all the unit teams, like the provost executive team, student affairs, workforce, facilities, admin, finance, IT, HR, the deans, et cetera, all in a virtual format. There is great collaboration and coordination in order to create a virtual learning environment as well as maintain our online learning in this new and ever-changing environment we find ourselves in. Since the governor's announcement to close statewide all K-12 schools and our decision to cancel all face-to-face classes and go to a virtual environment, our employees have definitely stepped up to the occasion and have done exceptional work. I will want to try to convey some of that exceptional work our employees have done. It is by no means everything that is happening. My hope is to provide you some examples of the breadth and scope of what they have done in a short period of time and are continuing to do. For example, the provost and her team have taken 2,421 face-to-face CRNs and transitioned 1,915 CRNs into a virtual format. The Delta, classes with a hands-on component, will be taught at a later time, most likely in the summer and probably continuing into the fall. Those numbers do not include the already running online courses, which is approximately 600 CRNs. This transition could not have completed without the outstanding dedication, commitment, and support of the faculty. During spring break and the week after they completed over 52 group webinar sessions with 542 faculty participants. Since then, there have been another 553 faculty who have watched the webinar sessions in an on-demand format. Student affairs have transitioned their staff to conduct all services virtually. This includes tutoring, coaching, advising, counseling, library services, enrollment, et cetera. Thinking ahead, they are continuing their summer and fall enrollment campaign as well as they have just deployed Chatbox for student affairs in order to provide enrollment and advising information on a 24/7 basis. The administration and finance has been just as busy as they continue to support all functions of the college with HR and (indiscernible) looking at current policies in order to adjust them to our ever-changing environment like leave policy. They are providing professional development opportunities for employees. In fact, since the 17th of March, employees have completed their college -- 44 employees have completed their college-directed training. Payroll operations continues not only with direct deposit but mailing over 145 checks each cycle. Finance has issued over 800 student refund checks. IT has configured and distributed over 300 laptops to our employees. They have provided VPN access to over 500 users while optimizing Wi-Fi signals at all the campuses to ensure student access to a stable and secure network in our parking lots, starting with West Campus. This is all part of the provost student Wi-Fi access plan which will hopefully provide access to students in our parking lot on a driveup basis. The facilities team has been working on the campuses, allowing limited access to key and essential personnel as well as granting access for a limited period for faculty and staff to gather needed material to work from home. They are also continuing securing them against unauthorized access from would-be intruders. Additionally, while conducting some critical deferred maintenance, they are also prepared to conduct a deep cleaning of all facilities which then will be secured until a decision is made to reoccupy the facilities. At this point, our centers of excellence construction projects are continuing. At some point we anticipate there may be downstream effects due to supply train, logistics trains being interrupted as well as personnel issues, but at this point we are proceeding. External affairs is providing the vital linkage to keep the college community informed in the latest and greatest decisions and development. Lisa and her team are updating daily if not more the COVID-19 website, as well as providing Pima (indiscernible) on a daily basis, all the while while preparing the new website for a launch on 6 April. Lastly, each unit is documenting lessons learned in order to incorporate them into our evolving plan. Our emergency management planner Steve H has been charged with taking our current pandemic plan and updating to a broader, more phase plan so we could have a solid document based on this experience so we are better prepared for the next occurrence, because it will happen at some point. Again, this is just a few brief examples of where we are today. It in no way encapsulates all the great work our employees are doing on a daily basis in this new reality. Pending any questions, that's all I have. >> MR. MARK HANNA: First of all, thank you, Tom, for taking charge on this whole issue. I appreciate having you there and knowing that you really are doing everything within your power and using your folks and other folks to address the many issues. You mentioned that the West Campus -- is the West Campus parking lot now Wi-Fi available there? Is that correct? >> SPEAKER: So what they are doing is they are going to start on Monday, and Dolores can really get into this more. She's leading the effort. But what we are doing is optimizing all the signals and all the campuses. Raj and his team have been working on the West Campus. I think they are done now, and they're starting to work on Downtown and going around to all the different campuses. But I think we are going to message this at the end of the week, so then all students can go on Monday to start utilizing, you know, basically a huge Wi-Fi hotspot. No way are they going to go out into the buildings or walk around. They are going to be limited to their cars, one per car, and be able to drive up and access there. >> MR. MARK HANNA: I don't understand how we would be able to enforce that one per car. I'm not sure how that would work, but I'm glad -- >> SPEAKER: We're taking social distancing pretty seriously, and so, now, granted if they bring their kids, then obviously as a family unit, they're going to be -- it is what it is at that point, but to have multiple students in a car, we are just going to -- we will have employees on the site still. Then we can go from there. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Also, I wanted to say to Bill Ward, thank you again to your people. I know public safety people, janitorial people, all the people that have had to remain on the job, a special thanks to those folks, as well. >> MR. BILL WARD: Thanks, Mark. >> SPEAKER: And I also want to point out, this is a team effort. In no way, shape, or form am I making this happen or Bill or anyone. This is really a team effort from all our employees, and, you know, I have been very impressed that everybody is coming together for a common cause. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Tom? And to all people in the audience, I just want to share my thanks to everyone. It's a wonderful effort to see the amount of work everybody is putting in. I so much appreciate the leadership that I see. Again, thank you, thank everyone, thank you. I know everyone appreciates it. >> SPEAKER: Thank you. We'll pass the word. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: All right. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any other comments from the board? Or questions? >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: I just want to thank Mr. Davis, the outstanding job that the employees are doing, and thank you on behalf the community, as well, too. Thanks. >> SPEAKER: Thanks. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Tom. We really appreciate your hard work and your extraordinary lift and effort on this. >> SPEAKER: We also thank the board, too, for your guys' support. Thanks. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Next we have our report from the chancellor. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Well, good afternoon, everyone. I too just want to echo the thank yous. I mean, for everyone to come together in such a short period of time is just phenomenal, and Tom has outlined just some of the many groups that have really stepped up for this community, for our students. I want to thank the board for your tremendous support. I also want to highlight that the ELT, under Tom's leadership of bringing the group together, we formed what we call a COVID-19 team and that's made up of the ELT and a few other extended members of the college. We meet every morning. Tom facilitates a morning meeting. That's usually two or less hours a day just to kind of brief, touch on key decision points that need to be addressed. That's where you're seeing a lot of these brainstorms come up, and then we follow through, which lead to things like being able to offer the Wi-Fi options at our different campuses. We're still testing the signal strength out at West. We want to make sure that's going to play well for our students when they come out there. And then looking to move that to all the other locations over the course of the balance of this semester, going into the summer and to the fall. What I'd like to share is what we're looking our four phases to our work. I'll put it in a larger context. The conversation that I was involved in with Senator Sinema. She's echoed what we are hearing a lot of the experts say. This is a long-term pandemic challenge that we have in front of us. We should not be thinking, you know, this is all going to go away by the time this summer, and there is a seasonality and all of those things. This is going to come back in the fall, likely to come back in the winter. Until there is a vaccine we have to continue to stay focused and vigilant, providing the best opportunities for our students and community. So with that said, our plan is broken into four segments. The first segment is the near-term, 0 to 3 months. You have heard a lot about what we have been doing in that space. But also as we push up against that third month, that's starting to move us into the summer, which moves us into the short-term, that three- to six-month range. And as we are working through the summer pieces, we are also planning for fall. You're going to see us plan to remain -- I rather us go in with the mindset that we're going to be in this virtual environment both from an instructional standpoint and from a student services delivery standpoint. Then we can always walk it back. You might see us schedule courses in rooms with times, but we also will have the ability to move that completely into the virtual space, as well. So we're building with that in mind. And so then when you go into the 6- to 12-month range, we are -- we ultimately want to move more and more into the online modality for the instructional side. I draw a distinction between online and virtual. I'm probably not going to say this correctly, because I think Michael Amick and Dolores can say it a lot better than I can, and that is online, there is an infrastructure that's built on, there is a lot of quality in terms of training and preparing faculty. So this isn't something you can just turn on in a week or two. That's why we have drawn the distinction between the online and the virtual. So what we want to do is to see our virtual components catch up to our online components as we move in the fall. So you will see investments in professional development for faculty, get them ready to do more and more into an online modality if we can make that happen over the summer. Again, it's being prepared, and then we can always dial back if we need to. Then we need to think about that 12 month and beyond. We're talking about at least a 12- to 18-month challenge in front of us. And even beyond that, there is going to be the aftermath. What do we do once we come out of all of this? We are a long ways out. I just want to manage the expectation that we should be thinking that we will continue to be in this boat, which also includes some limited or suspended operations in terms of face-to-face offerings or face-to-face presence as well as a level of social distancing still occurring and limiting folks to less than 10 in terms of group gatherings. So with that said, I am done with my report. Again, I just want to highlight that the kindness and the compassion that's coming out, everyone at the college. It's a tremendous testament to our humanity and really a testament to this community that we live here in Tucson and Pima County, Southern Arizona. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Lee, for that. Any comments or questions for Lee? No? Okay. Next we have our information items. Mr. Silvyn, if you just want to read the information items. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this month, to help streamline this meeting procedure, we asked all of the board representatives to submit their reports in writing rather than to give them orally, so those were written reports were included in the information items, along with the January 2020 financial statements, there is employment information about a new hire, separations and retirements. And then also listed individuals who have been certified as qualified to teach as adjunct faculty at Pima College. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Terrific. Next we have our consent agenda. Mr. Silvyn, if you could read the consent agenda. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The consent agenda items for today's meeting include the March 11, 2020 executive session meeting, the minutes from the March 11, 2020 regular board meeting, a list of proposed sabbatical approvals for the fall of 2020, an amendment to the current intergovernmental agreement with the Pima County Joint Education District, which would make concurrent enrollment classes available at all of the main Pima College campuses. We also have an amendment to the current dual enrollment agreement with Amphitheatre to add courses at Ironwood High School. There is an agreement, a proposed extension to the IGA with Pima County to extend the term of the current interim chief arrangement through June 30, 2020. There is a mutual aid agreement between multiple Pima County law enforcement agencies that would then include our police department, as well. We have a proposed contract for life insurance and certain types of disability benefits for as part of the employee benefits package. That is potentially up to a five-year agreement. There is also up to a five-year agreement for life insurance and short-term disability benefits for employees. Proposed agreement with Delta Dental service for dental benefits for the employees for the next five years. Also a proposed agreement for up to five years for the dental health maintenance organization. That's an alternative dental benefit that employees can choose. Renewal of our medical and pharmaceutical benefits for employees for the fiscal year '20 -2021, separate some benefits for the upcoming of fiscal year. And finally, there is proposed Aruba network switches, part of our ongoing maintenance and update effort with that agreement not expected to exceed $440,000. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you very much. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: So moved. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Second? >> MR. MARK HANNA: Second. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: All in favor of -- discussion? Mr. Hanna? >> MR. MARK HANNA: I just want to make note publicly of the contract for the employee medical benefits and pharmaceutical benefits, includes no increase in premiums for our employees. That is a great turn of events, and I appreciate all those involved in making that happen. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Thank you, Mr. Hanna. I certainly agree. The board has continually pushed that as an important initiative within the institution, so I'm glad to see that. All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye? (Ayes.) >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Anyone opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously. Next we have our action items. The first is 5.1, resolution regarding COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Silvyn, if you could read the recommendation? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The chancellor recommends the Governing Board adopt a resolution concerning the COVID-19 pandemic that recognizes the need for flexible decision-making and specific principles to be followed when addressing the circumstances created by the pandemic. A proposed form of the resolution accompanies the board report. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a motion to approve the recommendation as read? >> DR. MEREDITH HAY: So moved. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a second? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Second. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any discussion? Mr. Hanna? >> MR. MARK HANNA: Yes. So I am still a little confused, although I was provided some further information by Mr. Silvyn, but as to whether or not this resolution involves giving the chancellor additional responsibilities that normally would be the responsibility of the board to approve? And if it does, that there be a limit to the time frame or reapproval or a time frame to relook at this resolution? Mr. Silvyn, if you could explain that, please. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Certainly. I'd be glad to. So the resolution, as currently worded, does not add any additional delegation of authorities to the chancellor. Rather, it was intended to really achieve three purposes: One, it provides a formal opportunity for the board to take action essentially expressing how seriously we take the current situation. The second is it's directing the chancellor to use his existing authorities to address the current circumstance following two key principles. The first is to take the actions necessary to protect the health and safety of employees and students and protect the assets of the district. And then secondly and equally as important to provide the maximum amount of educational services possible under those given circumstances. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Can I add one more thing? When a decision like that has to be made, and we understand, under these circumstances, that you have to act on things quickly, that we would at least be given five days' notice on what has transpired? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So just to get, for clarification, are you asking that we amend the motion to include, like that the administration will notify us within five days of the action being taken or after the five days that the action was taken? Which is it that you -- >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Within five days. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So after the action is taken within five days that the board would -- >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Right, yes. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. I think that that's -- >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Can I clarify? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I would also note -- I know the rest of the board, for the most part, I think, knows this, but I have been on a daily basis in communication with Chancellor Lambert, and I know that he has taken time out of the very busy schedule to make sure that everybody is briefed and reached out to everybody to keep them informed of what's going on. He has made himself fully available if any board member needs to reach him. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: He's done a tremendous job I think of keeping us informed and not making decisions without some sort of board consultation, at least with me. But I agree, notifying the board of any specific decisions within five days of the decision being made makes sense. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Thank you. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: And can I add to that, Demion? That's why you see, in the daily messaging we send out, if there was a decision, it lays it out in that message. So hopefully we'll continue to do that, and if there is something else you want to see that we're not doing, please let me know. I have no problem of doing something within five days. That's very reasonable. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Thank you. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Still, should we have a time frame to relook at this, or is it pretty much based on the pandemic, whatever the end of the national emergency is? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Correct me if I'm wrong, but just so I'm clear, this is really just the board articulating -- we're not creating any new real powers or deferring any powers. We are just articulating, you know, the role of the chancellor and board, and I think after the pandemic it just -- you know, the board can at any moment reconvene and we can change any of the authorities that we have given the board and alter our decision-making process. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: You could, and the introductory language has a reference too that the reason for this is it's connected to the COVID-19 pandemic and the state and federal declarations of emergency. So you can certainly imply that -- it's within the context of that framework, it's not forever after. But certainly if that would make the board more comfortable or would provide greater clarity, you could certainly adopt as part of this direction that we relook at it, for example, when the state lifts the state of emergency. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Yeah, I would be in favor of doing that. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So based on the conversation, we would -- we would amend the motion and the approval based on the addition of formal notification within five days if decisions are made, and that is coming currently in the form of a daily update, and that we would modify the language just to be explicit that this extends through the duration of the national state and local emergency. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: I just wanted to add, Demion, that the other -- to everyone else, is that we don't want to give the perception that we're giving up our authority, nor the -- and help people to understand that he is communicating with us, and that's all it is. It's just a balancing. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: So that would be a friendly amendment to the nomination if the nominator and the seconder are agreeable. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Yes. >> MR. LUIS GONZALES: Yes. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: With that, is there any additional discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. (Ayes.) >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Anyone opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously. Our final item is 5.2, modification of student fees, if we could begin by reading the recommendation. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Sure. Just for a piece of context, so by statute, the board is responsible for setting the tuition rate and fees, and that's what led to the request to adopt the motion, as follows: The chancellor recommends that the Governing Board delegate to the chancellor the authority to reduce or waive any type of student fee (indiscernible) for the remainder of the current fiscal year and for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2020. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is there a motion to approve the recommendation? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Motion to approve. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: I'll go ahead and second it. Now we have a discussion. Mr. Hanna? >> MR. MARK HANNA: Yes. So I heard someone -- I don't remember who said it before, that we were doing this for the summer, but as I just heard Mr. Silvyn say, it's for the whole -- we have the ability to do it for the entire next fiscal year, as well? Is that correct? >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Yes, Mr. Silvyn. >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: To clarify, for example, one of the things that Dr. Bea talked about was waiving the fee for the payment plan. So if the board were to pass this motion, the chancellor could waive the fee for the payment plan not only for the remainder of this academic year but for the next academic year. So the idea was that there are not a lot of student fees, are not particularly high, but there are a series of student fees, and it seemed conducive to encouraging students to stay or removing barriers that the chancellor and the administration would have the authority to reduce or waive those fees not only through the current academic year but through the upcoming academic year when we expect the disruption to continue. >> MR. MARK HANNA: So what this item is is giving the chancellor the authority to do that; is that correct? He doesn't have to come back to the board and say, you need to vote on this, right? >> MR. JEFF SILVYN: Right. By statute, the board sets tuition and fees, so any time we want to modify those, we have to go to the board. So instead of having to do that every time, the thought was to see whether the board would be amenable, and again, this is authority not to increase fees. Either to waive them or reduce them for the balance of this year and the next fiscal year. >> MR. MARK HANNA: And I assume that the chancellor would notify the board if this is going to happen and maybe can get our opinion on whether or not we agree with that situation? >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Yes. So keep in mind you're not giving me the authority to set a fee. You're just giving me the authority to waive a fee. And like everything up till now, I will talk to the board chair and reach out to each of you, and just make sure that everyone is comfortable. And then we'll make a final decision. >> MR. MARK HANNA: And the fee we are talking about is the fee that we currently charge if you decide to take a payment plan? Correct? >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Correct. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Okay. Thank you. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Any other questions about this item? >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Let me clarify something. It says in here to waive the payment plan fee and request the flexibility to waive other fees. I don't want you to think that it's just the payment plan. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Okay. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. Not hearing any other questions, all in favor of the motion, signify by saying eye? (Ayes.) >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Is anyone opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously. Finally request for future agenda items, and we're going to be having the upcoming study session to really look at, like, a variety of different scenarios for our fiscal year, upcoming fiscal year. Are there any other things that anyone would like added to a future agenda at this point? No? Okay. >> DR. LEE LAMBERT: Demion, real quick, we are likely to bring to the board for a special meeting before the end of the week the contract for the cleaning services of the district. >> MR. DEMION CLINCO: Okay. We'll have a special meeting and that will be posted per open meeting laws. Additionally, we are looking to identify a way to sort of reactivate a digital virtual version of call to the audience for the next meeting, so we'll hopefully have something more rather than just sending comments in. We appreciate everybody again for all of your extraordinary work. Please be safe. Take care of your loved ones and yourself. Stay at home and wash your hands. Meeting is adjourned. >> MS. MARIA GARCIA: Be safe, everyone. >> MR. MARK HANNA: Thanks. (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. 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