Issues Related to the Board of Trustees

By Wilma E. Bennett

These are issues that I have observed while attending Board of Trustee meetings. At the end of the write-up I identify my solutions.

Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees - Issues

I want to put the trust back in Trustee. The Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees is not serving its students or its community well. Here are some of the issues I see with the current Board:

1. The Board is controlled by one special interest group. That is too much power to have in the hands of one group.

2. The Board never publicly votes on financial items individually. It groups all financial issues under one majority vote and one super-majority vote. The Board simply rubberstamps what the financial subcommittee presents to it. Information presented to the public on these items is never more than an executive summary, often missing critical information. Majority vote financial decisions include:
- Authorize Professional Service Agreements
- Ratify Service Agreements
- Authorize Amendments to Service Agreements
- Terminate Contract Negotiations
- Terminate of Service Agreements
- Ratify Acceptance of Donations
- Authorize Payments
- Accept Income
- Authorize Budget Adjustments
- Authorize Organizational Memberships
- Authorize Interfund Transfers
- Authorize Intrafund Transfers
- Authorize Construction Contracts
- Ratify Construction Contract Change Orders
- Adopt Construction Plans/Specifications
- Accept Completion of Construction Contracts
- Authorize Issuance of Purchase Orders
- Approve New Educational Certificates
- Ratify Student Travel - Approve New Courses
- Ratify Business Services and Facilities Planning (This topic alone included: Authorizations to Pay, Facilities Order Forms, Consultant Proposals, Athletic Officiating Services, Art Modeling Services, Facilities Leases, Maintenance of Equipment Agreements, Equipment Lease Agreements, Student Intern Agreements, Loan Agreements, Work Study Agreements, Specially Funded Agreements, Short Term Agreements, and Claim Settlements.)

At the 12/11/02 Board meeting, for example, 307 financial items in the above categories were authorized with one vote! Apparently, the Board didn't find one item among the 307 that deserved a No vote. It appears that the board is merely rubberstamping the financial actions of the District. It needs to delegate some items (such as authorizing student travel within designated guidelines, accepting donations which have no strings attached and are not controversial, and routine intra/interfund transfers) and spend more time studying the others.

3. It is very difficult for the public to get advance notice of Board meetings and of the content of those meetings. Meetings must be held twice a month, but the dates are rearranged to meet the needs of the Board Members so they won't lose pay for missing a meeting. The times of the next meeting which are printed at the end of each Agenda do not coincide with the times the meetings are actually held. This causes the public to miss important discussions.

4. It is even difficult, if not impossible for the Trustees themselves to get information in a timely manner. At one meeting, a Trustee held up a 3" stack of reports and documents commenting that she had received them only 3 days before the Board meeting. She asked to receive such information earlier, so that she could study it and make informed decisions. This Trustee is not controlled by any special interest group. Her request was not supported by any of the other six Trustees and was not granted. One Trustee remarked that she only needed an executive summary. It's astonishing that the Trustees who need this information, and who have the final say on when to get it, aren't being accommodated.

5. The District is frequently hit by lawsuits. The Board merely accepts the reports on the lawsuits and does nothing about them. You'd think they'd want to know why there are so many lawsuits and what preventative action has been taken to reduce their frequency.

6. There is a pattern in the problems which come before the Board. First, people who are impacted by major decisions are not given sufficient advance notice. Secondly, impacted parties are not given adequate opportunity for input before a decision is made. This holds true whether it involves discontinuing a program or removing a student leader from office. Students who need a particular program are shut out. Employers who need trained workers are abandoned. Faculty members are told they must teach the same amount of material in a shorter semester. (Meanwhile, the machines in vocational programs are, of course, incapable of operating faster than they are designed for.) District employees emphasize that they follow District procedures in such cases. Clearly, the Board needs to make sure the District procedures are improved.

7. In the United States 75% of adults never complete a 4-year college. Meanwhile, the jobs this 75% performs are becoming increasingly sophisticated and technical. Our community colleges play a major role in providing technically trained employees. Yet L.A.C.C.D. is downsizing vocational programs and emphasizing transfer programs. It has eliminated the Auto Program at Harbor College, much of the Agriculture program at Pierce College, and the Plastics and Small Engines classes at Trade-Tech.

8. Since the District has already allocated all the money ($1.2 billion) that was approved in the 2001 bond measure, it is going back to the public this year for another bond issue of almost a billion dollars ($980 million). Its excuse is that it didn't know it needed so much money in the last bond issue, because the individual campus Master Plans were not yet complete. They excuse the fact that the Master Plans had never been prepared by saying they never had any money, so there was nothing to plan for and no reason to plan!

There is no question that the District's infrastructure needs work, but based on the above information, we can't know that any new monies will be handled wisely.

9. There is controversy over the Master Plans the Board has approved. At Pierce College, for example, they want to put buildings and parking lots on irreplaceable agricultural land. At Los Angeles City College they are putting a for-profit golf-driving range on a piece of land that should have been used to build a facility to train nurses.

10. The Board loves to spend time writing and passing resolutions which seldom relate to running the District. This makes them look good to students. Meanwhile the District charges a minimum 30% markup on student textbooks, pricing already expensive texts out of the reach of many students.

As you can see, these problems are serious. Replacing only one of the incumbent Trustees will not help. The special interest group will still have majority control. Therefore, a group of us have formed the Community College Coalition. Four Trustee seats are up for election in March and we have one candidate for each seat. We need to achieve a majority on the Board, so that we can clean it up. You deserve a board that is more than a rubberstamp and a resolution writer.

On March 4, 2003 vote for: Seat 1: Mark Isler, public school teacher, businessman, host of TV program Saving the American Dream

Seat 3: Dr. Wilma Bennett, educator, businesswoman, real estate investor, community college graduate

Seat 5: Dr. David Sanchez, community college instructor, former Parks Commissioner in Long Beach

Seat 7: David Hernandez, independent insurance adjuster

Summary of My Solutions:

Here is the minimum I think must be done to resolve these issues:

1. Revise District policies so that all impacted parties are given advance notice before major decisions are made. This revision would include providing adequate time for input from impacted students, faculty, and community (including employers who require a well-trained workforce) before finalizing decisions.

2. Find ways to provide core courese on a regular basis, so that students are not needlessly delayed in completing their education. Right now it takes the average L.A.C.C.D. student five years to finish a degree!

3. Update Board procedures so that they concentrate on critical decisions and address trivia only if time is available. Currently, a Board meeting starts with a Thought for the Day; goes on to pass one or more Trustee-written resolutions, most of which don't enhance learning or financial decision-making; holds ceremonial signings (their term, not mine) of new contracts; and finally passes all financial decisions in one or two votes (depending on whether the item requires a majority or super-majority vote).

4. Delegate decisions that shouldn't be made by the directors of a billion dollar entity. (In addition to their $657M budget, the Trustees also have control over another approximately $400M.) Why is the Board approving student travel; art model payments; referee payments; routine, non-controversial inter- and intrafund transfers; etc.? These authorizations should be done at the campus or administrative levels.

5. Standardize the days of the month that the Board meets and the time of its public meetings. this will make it easier for the public to attend meetings and easier for the public and the District's administrative staff to provide information to the Trustees on a timely basis. As a Trustee I'd want to leave any Board meeting carrying any documents I must study for the next meeting.

6. Find a way to move District headquarters from the expensive, prime real estate it leases on Wilshire Blvd. in downtown L.A.

7. Invite outsiders who have served on Boards of billion-dollar companies to review Board procedures and appropriate District procedures and make recommendations. These wouldn't be paid consultants, because that appears to be an area where serious money is currently being wasted.

All of the above, and more, is needed to put the trust back in Trustee.