Retirees Honored at June Governing Board Meeting

The Board of Trustees honored the 2018-2019 YCCD Retirees at the June Regular Board Meeting.  The eleven (11) 2018-2019 Retirees represented a total of 242 years of service at YCCD.

Congratulations to all!

Not Pictured:

District Services:
Devi LaFievre, Information Systems Specialist I
22 Years of Service
Linda Hofstra, Accounting Technician
20 Years of Service

Yuba College:
Professor John Almy, Language Arts Instructor
21 Years of Service
Professor Richard Edmunds, Instructor of English
33 Years of Service
Leticia Gomez, Counselor
30 Years of Service
Professor Francesca Hulin, ESL Faculty
17 Years of Service
Professor John Langston, Instructor of Chemistry
32 Years of Service
Dr. Jan Ponticelli, DSPS Coordinator
20 Years of Service
Donna Veal, Library Technical Assistant
20 Years of Service

YCCD Welcomes New WCC President

The Yuba Community College District (YCCD) welcomes Dr. Pimentel as the third President of Woodland Community College.  President Pimentel assumed office on July 1, 2019.

YCCD conducted an extensive, nation-side search for the new Woodland Community College (WCC) President upon the announcement of President Dr. Michael White’s decision to retire as of June 30, 2019.  The search produced a pool of 31 qualified applicants and the search committee narrowed that pool to nine individuals recommended for second round interviews.  The secondary interviews were conducted in May 2019 and each candidate had the opportunity to meet informally with community members and speak at an open forum.

Chancellor Houston recommended to the Governing Board the hiring of Dr. Artemio Pimentel at the June 13, 2019 Regular Board meeting.  With over 16 years of experience in higher education, Dr. Pimentel bring experience in leadership of student and instructional services, fiscal management, marketing, community outreach, enrollment management, information technology, facilities management, government relations as well as institutional and strategic planning.  Dr. Pimentel holds a Bachelors of Arts in Social Sciences from California State University, Sacramento, a Masters of Arts in Educational Leadership from California State University, Sacramento and a Doctorate in Education from the University of California, Davis.

Dr. Pimentel was born in the City of Woodland and is a product of the Woodland Joint Unified School District, graduating from Woodland High School in 1997.  No stranger to YCCD and WCC, Dr. Pimentel previously served as the Public Information Officer at WCC in 2006, as the Director of TRiO Programs in 2009, and was appointed as the Executive Dean for the Lake County Campus in 2012.

YCCD 2019-2020 Tentative Budget

The 2019-2020 tentative budget was presented and discussed in the DC3 and Board of Trustees’ meetings in June.  The final budget will be adopted in September.  This article describes a synopsis of the presentation.

The 2019-20 Tentative Budget is built around the Governor’s May Revise, which represents good progress for the California Community Colleges under proposition 98 funding and reflects modest growth.  The 2019-2020 Tentative Budget is balanced with a 13.10% ending balance.  Of this amount, 8% meets the Boards minimum reserve requirement.  There is no reliance on one-time funds to support ongoing costs and there continues to be a draw on the reserves.  The Tentative Budget includes the revenue and expenditure assumptions as listed below:

• District Apportionment funding driven by Base, Supplemental and Student Success Allocations. 3 year average FTES of 7,149 FTES funded at 70%.
• A COLA increase of 3.26% is provided – $1,747,727
• Full Time Faculty Hiring (FTFH) – $455,591
• No enrollment growth is projected. Statewide – 0.55%
• California College Promise Expansion – $305,190 (Restricted)
• State mandated reimbursements and Lottery income remain flat.

Ongoing general fund (unrestricted) revenues and expenditures are tentatively budgeted as follows:

Beginning Balance:                                             $7,640,635
Revenues:                                                           $58,499,580
Expenditures:                                                      $58,481,285
Ending/Designated Fund Balance:                     $7,658,930 – 13.10%

Chancellor Houston stated that once the Governor signs the State Budget the District would work both internally and with the Board to develop the authoritative, final, budget for approval in September.  Additionally, the presented Tentative Budget keeps all programs and services whole while augmenting tutoring services for each college.  The Innovation fund ramps up to $200K for 2019-20 and sets aside $200K for the 2020-21 year as well.  Also included in the Tentative Budget is a recommended $3M investment in the OPEB and a $2.6M pay-as-you-go investment for retiree health benefits.

Access the full tentative budget presentation here: YCCD 2019-2020 Tentative Budget Presentation.

Governor Adopts 2019-2020 State Budget

Governor Newsom signed the 2019-2020 California State Budget, with only a few line-item vetoes none of which impacted Community Colleges.  In total, the 2019-20 budget reflects state expenditures of $215 billion, including $148 million in General Fund expenditures.

The Budget Act includes $337 million in ongoing policy adjustments for California Community Colleges, compared to revised 2018-19 expenditure levels, as reflected below:

Major Policy Changes

Student Centered Funding Formula.  The Budget Act continues implementation of the SCFF, with adjustments to the formula’s structure in 2018-19 and 2019-20.  The budget recalculates funding rates in the base, supplemental, and student success allocations so that in 2019-20, 70 percent of SCFF funds would be allocated for the base allocation, 20 percent for the supplemental allocation, and 10 percent for the student success allocation.  Beginning in 2020-21, those funding rates would simply be adjusted by COLA, and the distribution of funds across the three allocations would be determined by changes in the underlying factors.  The budget also extends the existing minimum revenue provision of the SCFF, specifying that districts will receive at least the 2017-18 total computational revenues, adjusted by COLA each year, through 2021-22.

Expansion of California College Promise.  The Budget Act expands the California College Promise (AB 19) with an additional $43 million.  District can use funds to waive or buy out enrollment fees for any first time, full-time California students for up to one year.  Districts also can decide to use the funds for other purposes.  Trailer legislation amends the program to allow colleges to provide a second year of fee waivers for all first time, full-time students.

Cal Grant Expansion. The budget expands the number of competitive Cal Grant awards by 15,250.  These awards are for students who meet Cal Grant eligibility requirements but do not qualify for the entitlement programs, primarily because of the amount of time they have been out of school.  The budget also creates a new supplemental award for Cal Grant recipients who are enrolled in one of the public higher education segments and who have dependent children.  Finally, the budget creates the Cal Grant B Service Incentive Grant Program to provide students who are not eligible for federal work-study programs with non-tuition aid of up to $1,500 per semester for performing at least 150 hours of community or volunteer service per semester.

Relief on Pension Costs.  The budget includes a one-time, $1.6 million CalSTRS payment and a one-time. $660 million CalPERS payment, both of which would reduce school and community college districts’ share of the unfunded liability for these pension funds.  This action could reduce strains on local funds, which could allow for funding of other district priorities over the 2019-20 and 2020-21 years.

Longitudinal Data System.  The Budget Act funds implementation of a new statewide longitudinal data system, the “Cradle-to-Career Data System,” to connect information from education entities, employers, and other state and local agencies.  The Office of Planning and Research will serve as fiscal agent for these funds.  Enacted trailer language establishes a workgroup consisting of state agencies and other parties expected to provide data to the system.  The legislation directs the workgroup to prioritize implementation of the data system in the following order: phase 1 focusing on K-12 and higher education, phase 2 focusing on workforce, phase 3 focusing on early care and education, and phase 4 focusing on health and human services and other data connections.

 Capital Outlay
The budget includes $535.3 million in capital outlay funding from Proposition 51, approved by voters in 2016.  The funding is to support 20 continuing projects and 39 new projects.  The budget reduces by 20 percent funding for four projects that include no local match.  These colleges would be expected to generate the difference from other non-state funds.  The budget also reappropriates previously approved funding for three existing CCC projects due to delays in their design phases.  The Woodland Community College Performing Arts/Culinary Capital Project is included in the approved Proposition 51 funding.

District Newsletter

The District Newsletter is intended to share updates from various participatory District-wide decision-making groups, Board Policies and Administrative Procedures, updates from Cabinet, District Services, Fiscal Services, Information Technology, M&O, and Human Resources. The May 31, 2019 District Newsletter is available here: District Newsletter

Legislative Update

Bills of Interest

AB 30 (Holden) – This bill was moved to the Senate Appropriations suspense file. The bill would streamline the process for entering into CCAP dual enrollment partnerships and would extend the sunset date on the program by 5 years.

AB 130 (Low) – This bill passed Senate Education and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would establish the Higher Education Performance and Accountability Commission, composed of 6 public members with experience in postsecondary education, appointed, as the statewide postsecondary education coordination and planning entity.

AB 211 (Calderon) – This bill was referred to the Senate Appropriations suspense file. The bill would allow under that law a deduction against gross income in the amount equal to the monetary contribution made by a qualified taxpayer to the California qualified tuition program established pursuant to the Golden State Scholarshare Trust Act not to exceed either $5,000 or $10,000. The bill would require the Scholarshare Investment Board to report to the Legislature, on an annual basis, specified data related to this deduction and Scholarshare accounts.

AB 239 (Salas) – This bill passed Senate Appropriations and will go to the Senate floor. The bill would extend operation of provisions until January 1, 2025 that authorizes a community college registered nursing program to use any diagnostic assessment tool that is commonly used in registered nursing programs and approved by the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges. Existing law authorizes a community college registered nursing program to use additional multicriteria screening measures, administered in accordance with specified requirements, if it determines that the number of applicants to that registered nursing program exceeds its capacity.

AB 314 (Bonta) – This bill passed Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would expand and uniformly apply time-off without loss of compensation to public employees to engage in specified activities related to employer-employee relations.

AB 500 (Gonzalez) – This bill was referred to the Senate Appropriations suspense file. The bill would require school districts, charter schools and community colleges provide at least six weeks of full pay for pregnancy-related leaves of absence taken by certificated, academic, and classified employees.

AB 612 (Weber) – This bill passed Senate Human Services and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would authorize the State Department of Social Services to enter into a statewide memorandum of understanding with the California Community College system to prevent hunger among college students who are homeless, elderly, and disabled, and to facilitate compliance with specified provisions. Existing law also authorizes any qualifying food facility located on a campus of a community college to participate in the CalFresh RMP through this statewide memorandum of understanding, even if the facility is located in a county that does not participate in the RMP. The bill would require the department to implement its provisions by all-county letter or similar instruction until regulations are adopted and to adopt regulations implementing the bill on or before February 1, 2021.

AB 695 (Medina) – This bill passed Senate Appropriations and will go to the Senate floor. The bill would extend the authorization for community college districts to enter into design-build contracts to January 1, 2030.

AB 806 (Bloom) – This bill passed out of Senate Appropriations and will go to the Senate floor. The bill would add former homeless youth to the students to be granted, or requested to be granted, priority enrollment. This bill would add former homeless youth to the students with whom a Homeless and Foster Student Liaison works. This bill would add former homeless youth to those served by the specified financial aid programs. This bill would add persons who are, at the time of enrollment, former homeless youth to those eligible for an enrollment fee waiver.

AB 943 (Chiu) – This bill was referred to the Assembly Appropriations suspense file. The bill would authorize the use of funding for student equity plans, up to $25,000 of apportionment funds per campus, or both, for the provision of emergency student financial assistance to eligible students to overcome unforeseen financial challenges that would directly impact a student’s ability to persist in the student’s course of study if emergency student financial assistance is included in an institution’s plan for interventions to students.

AB 1051 (Smith) – This bill passed Senate Education and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would authorize the employment of a temporary faculty member serving as full-time clinical nursing faculty or as part-time clinical nursing faculty by any one community college district for up to 4 semesters or 6 quarters indefinitely. The bill would also require each community college district that employs these faculty members to report the specified information on or before June 30 of each year, and would require the chancellor’s office to report its information on or before September 30 of each year.

AB 1090 (Medina) – This bill was referred to the Senate Appropriations suspense file. The bill would require community colleges and CSUs to excuse any mandatory campus-based fees for those surviving spouses and children of a deceased person who was a resident of the state and employed by or contracting with a public agency, whose principal duties consisted of active law enforcement service or active fire suppression and prevention, and who died as a result of their duties.

AB 1452 (O’Donnell) – This bill was placed in the Senate Appropriations suspense file. The bill would prohibit aggregating creditable service in more than one position for determining mandatory membership on a part-time basis for 50% or more of the time, the employer requires for a full-time position. This bill would specify that an employee’s election for coverage under the federal Social Security Act or an alternative retirement plan does not preclude that employee from electing to participate in the Cash Balance Benefit Program for creditable service performed for that employer at a later date, if the program is still offered and the employee is still eligible.

AB 1466 (Irwin) – This bill passed Senate Labor, Public Employment & Retirement and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would require the Governor to convene a taskforce on the establishment of a statewide student longitudinal database, with specified representatives from various segments in, and representatives of, the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education systems in the state and from the state agencies relating to the workforce. The bill would authorize the taskforce to establish working groups that include outside stakeholders to address topics as determined by the taskforce. The bill would require the taskforce to initially meet on or before July 1, 2020, and would specify objectives for the taskforce to meet within timeframes set forth in the bill, including developing a plan for a scope of work and preparing a report with recommendations by the taskforce of an implementation plan for the structure of, governance of, access to, and metrics included in, a database system. This bill would require the taskforce to submit the report to the Legislature and the Governor on or before July 1, 2022.

AB 1504 (Medina) – This bill passed Senate Appropriations and will go to the Senate floor. The bill would require the officials at a community college, if a student body association has been established at the college, to collect a student representation fee of $2 at the time of registration, and would eliminate the authorization for a student election to terminate the fee. This bill would require that $1 of the $2 fee be expended to establish and support the operation of a statewide community college organization for all student representation fees collected, rather than only for those fees adopted on or after January 1, 2014.

AB 1518 (Chu) – This bill passed Senate Education and will go to Senate Judiciary. The bill would authorize a student athlete to enter into a contract with an athlete agent without losing their status as a student athlete, if the contract complies with the policy of the student athlete’s educational institution and the bylaws of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The bill would authorize an athlete agent or their representative to offer or provide money or any other thing of benefit or value to a student athlete if it is authorized and complies with the policy of the student athlete’s educational institution and the bylaws of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

AB 1645 (Rubio) – This bill passed Senate Education and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would require the California Community Colleges and the California State University, and request the University of California, to designate a Dreamer Resource Liaison on each of their respective campuses, as specified, to assist students meeting specified requirements, including undocumented students, by streamlining access to all available financial aid, social services, state-funded immigration legal services, internships, externships, and academic opportunities for those students.

AB 1727 (Weber) – This bill passed out of Senate Education and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would authorize the calculation of attendance for Career Development and College Preparation courses by census date.

AB 1729 (Smith) – This bill passed Senate Education and will go to Senate Appropriations. The bill would exempt from the 5% limitation pupils who are enrolled in community college dual enrollment courses, and would explicitly provide that the 5% limitation apply to pupils enrolled in physical education courses at the community college.

SB 3 (Allen) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Appropriations. The bill would establish the Office of Higher Education Coordination, Accountability, and Performance. The bill would give the office specified functions and responsibilities for purposes of statewide postsecondary education planning, oversight, data collection, and coordination.

SB 150 (Beall) – This bill was placed in the Assembly Appropriations suspense file. The bill would authorize the Student Aid Commission to make initial award offers of Chafee Educational and Training Vouchers Program of up to 200% of total state and federal program funding available for all awards, with the number of initial award offers and the amount of the award to be determined based on the historical rate of award acceptance. This bill would provide that if the acceptance rate of the awards offered exceeds the program funding available, the commission shall deduct the overage from the following year’s program funding allocation. This bill would also take away Chafee grant eligibility from a student who fails to demonstrate satisfactory academic progress, as defined by the institution where the student is enrolled, for 2 consecutive years, with specified exceptions. The bill would require that institutions provide an appeal process in writing and reinstate the student’s Chafee grant when certain conditions are met. The bill would also provide that a student who loses Chafee eligibility and subsequently is not enrolled for one or more terms shall regain eligibility upon reenrollment.

SB 173 (Dodd) – This bill passed out of Assembly Appropriations and will go to the Assembly floor. The bill would require the department to create a standardized form to be used by community colleges and universities to verify that a student is approved and anticipating participation in state or federal work study for the purpose of assisting county human services agencies in determining the student’s potential eligibility for CalFresh. The bill would require community colleges and universities to distribute the form to all students approved for state or federal work study and to provide information required to complete that form.

SB 297 (Pan) – This bill passed out of Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Education. The bill would alter the Field Act to require the submission of the plans to the Department of General Services before the commencement of any construction or alteration of any school building instead of before adopting the plans. The bill would also require under the Field Act, the written departmental approval of the plans, specifications, and estimates before the commencement of any construction or alteration of any school building instead of before the letting of the contract.

SB 383 (Committee on Education) – This bill passed the Assembly and will go to the Governor. This Education Omnibus Bill makes noncontroversial and technical changes to the Education Code.

SB 390 (Umberg) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Appropriations. The bill would require school security officers and security guards for school districts and community college districts to complete that training course regardless of the number of hours worked per week and to complete the training course annually. The bill would require, by January 1, 2021, the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, in consultation with the Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training, to update the training to reflect current school district and community college district security standards.

SB 462 (Stern) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Natural Resources. The bill would require the Chancellor’s Office of the California Community Colleges, working in collaboration with the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, to establish a model curriculum for a forestland restoration workforce program that could be offered at campuses of the California Community Colleges. The bill would require the chancellor’s office to distribute the model curriculum to community college districts no later than January 1, 2021, with the goal of enabling interested community college districts to offer the course to students beginning with the 2021–22 academic year.

SB 484 (Portantino) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Appropriations. The bill would require the governing board of each community college district to direct the appropriate officials at their respective campuses to (1) identify those students who have completed an associate degree for transfer, (2) notify those students of their completion of the degree requirements, (3) automatically award those students the degree, and (4) add those students to an identification system at the end of each academic year that the Office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges shall maintain and that can be accessed electronically by the California State University and the University of California. The bill would authorize a student to affirmatively exercise an option to not receive an associate degree for transfer or to not be included in the identification system.

SB 554 (Roth) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Appropriations. The bill would authorize the governing board of a school district overseeing an adult education program or the governing board of a community college district overseeing a noncredit program to authorize a student pursuing a high school diploma or a high school equivalency certificate to enroll as a special part-time student at a community college.

SB 568 (Portantino) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to the Assembly floor. The bill would authorize Glendale Community College’s governing board, pursuant to a memorandum of understanding, to provide that April 24 shall be a Glendale College holiday known as “Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.”

SB 575 (Bradford) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Appropriations. The bill would repeal prohibition against a student who is incarcerated from being eligible to receive a Cal Grant award.

SB 660 (Pan) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Appropriations. The bill would require the Trustees of the California State University and the governing board of each community college district to have one full-time equivalent mental health counselor with an applicable California license per 1,500 students enrolled at each of their respective campuses to the extent consistent with state and federal law. The bill would define mental health counselor for purposes of this provision.

SB 716 (Mitchell) – This bill passed Assembly Higher Education and will go to Assembly Public Safety. The bill would require a county probation department, in collaboration with the California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California, to ensure that juveniles with a high school diploma or California high school equivalency certificate who are detained in, or committed to, a juvenile hall, ranch, camp, or forestry camp have access to a full array of postsecondary academic and career technical education programs of their choice. This bill would also require the Division of Juvenile Facilities, in collaboration with the California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California, to ensure that youth with a high school diploma or California high school equivalency certificate who are detained in, or committed to, a Division of Juvenile Facilities facility have access to a full array of postsecondary academic and career technical education programs of their choice.

SB 777 (Rubio) – This bill was pulled from committee by the author and is now a two-year bill. The bill would have required a 5% increase toward the 75% law on an annual basis, contingent upon funding being provided in the budget.

Chancellor’s Calendar

July 2019

8 – Meeting with WCC President
8 – Meeting with Student Trustees
9 – Chancellor’s Cabinet
9 – Meeting with Trustee Ortiz
10 & 11 – Board Planning Session
11 – Regular Meeting of the Governing Board
12 – District Offices Closed (Summer Closure)
16 – Attend part of AACC President’s Academy Summer Institute & return
17 – Attend part of ACCCA’s Admin 201 & keynote speech
18 – Meeting with Trustee Pasquale
18 – Meeting with Trustee Teagarden
19 – District Offices closed (Summer Closure)
20 thru 22 – Attend opening of ACCCA’s Admin 101 (Irvine) and return
22 – State Budget Workshop
25 – Meeting with Chancellor Oakley
26 – District Offices closed (Last Friday of Summer Closures)
30 – Chancellor’s Cabinet
31 – Meetings of Facilities/Audit and Finance Committees
31 – Trustee Orientation Session #5

Follow Douglas Houston @Yubadistrict