Saturday, September 29, 2007

Les Folies SOCCCD (Will Good triumph over Goo?)

What’s up this week at the South Orange County Community College District?

THE RISING NON-INSTRUCTIONAL EXPENDITURES FOLLIES. Both colleges (i.e., Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College) are forwarding their faculty hiring priority lists to the board of trustees for approval. As you know, attempts to address our “50%” problem (by law, at least 50% of our district’s spending must be on instruction, and we are dangerously close to the 50% line) might include hiring many more faculty, but there’s no use talking about that just yet.

Owing to recent and frantic scrutiny of our financial records, the district has found that it is not out of compliance with the “50% law” for 2006-07 after all. I’m told that we’re at something like 50.03%. Since we’ve been descending from 53% down to 50% in the last five or so years, and since the district and its colleges are essentially spending money now pretty much as they did during 06-07, we’ve got a big problem re the 50% law STILL.

The law (Ed Code §84362) gives to faculty the right to data regarding college/district spending, and so a formal request for those data has been made. District officials have responded and have expressed the intention to comply. The district crowd is pretty peevish about this.

It's hard to say when faculty will get the data.

DRACULA:

At one point, the district decided that our efforts to address the 50% problem would be led by DRAC—the District Resources Allocation Committee. But, now, the Chancellor has created a new committee for this purpose.

It has been dubbed DRACULA—informally, I assume. It’s nice to see that people still have a sense of humor in the good ol' SOCCCD.

I’m told that, very recently, DRACULA met for the first time. I’m hoping to be able to report DRACULA’s progress to you, but the group’s members are pretty tight-lipped.

Many faculty suspect that the 50% problem does not derive from spending patterns at the colleges. Rather, it derives from spending patterns at the DISTRICT. If that’s true, the Chancellor is exactly the kind of guy who can be expected to take steps to prevent anyone from knowing about it.

So, in a way, this is a game, and it’s fun. The faculty and the public want to know the facts, and the district (or the Chancellor) don’t want us to know the facts. Who will prevail? Will good triumph over goo?

We need to know why we spiraled downward from 53% to 50% in a brief period. If we don’t understand this event, we’re gonna be up Shit Creek, cuz the 50% thing is a serious law, not the usual state BS.

THE ACCREDITATION FOLLIES:

Monday night, the SOCCCD board voted 4/3 to include its nasty and inflammatory “response” verbiage in the already existing drafts of the Accreditation Midterm Reports.

You know about Accreditation, right? The ACCJC (of WASC) comes around every six years to determine how well each college is doing relative to established standards. Our two colleges are “accredited” (2004), but the Accreds keep saying that we need to work on some problems, such as administrative instability, trustee micromanagement, and a “plague” of despair—largely inspired by the Board Majority’s ruthless and abusive lackey, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur.

But the trustees who dominate our board contemn the Accreditation process and the Accreds. Plus they’ve figured out that the ACCJC is essentially spineless. Naturally, therefore, they’ve been less than cooperative in the colleges’ efforts to satisfy the ACCJC that we’re working to overcome our problems.

At the August board meeting, the writers of the most recent Accreditation reports suddenly discovered that the district (Mathur and Co.) had written a “response”—to the Accreds and to faculty. At that eleventh hour, the Board decided to have the “response” verbiage incorporated into the reports. But the faculty who had labored on the Accred reports for four or five months had been careful to write honestly and carefully. The response verbiage, however, was neither honest nor careful. It was shit.

SLO-MO TRAIN WRECK:

At the August meeting, IVC’s Academic Senate President warned that she might not be able to sign off on the report if she were forced to include the district’s nasty and substandard verbiage. (See August meeting video [jump to 7.1].)

No matter. The Board Majority (Lang/Wagner/Fuentes/Williams) approved incorporation of the “response” into each college’s report.

In subsequent weeks, college Accred writers sought a form of “incorporation” that they could live with. Simply appending the “district response” or submitting it separately might be palatable. But Mathur acted to prevent that approach. He pushed for a form of “incorporation” that made signing off on the report an endorsement of the district’s unfortunate language.

At Monday’s meeting, the Mathurian editions were revealed. Again, faculty stated their objections. But on a vote of 4/3, the board approved these stinkoid versions. (See Sept meeting video [jump to 7.2].)

AND SO, starting late Monday night, it appeared that the two colleges would be forced to send Accreditation reports that are not signed by their chief authors or the faculty senate presidents.

Amazing.

"What does it mean? Will the heavens fall?" Such questions bounced all over the goddam walls.

BUT THEN: by midweek, the word had spread that, on the day after the board meeting, board president Dandy Dave "the quisling" Lang had a change of heart! Or perhaps he awoke to the terrible realization that signature-less reports would make him look like an *sshole.

So he set about to undo the mess that he and his nasty friends had created.

Meanwhile, the Saddleback College and the Irvine Valley College faculty senates met. Senators voted to direct their presidents not to sign the reports. The die was cast. Or not?

(At Thursday's IVC senate meeting, when the vote was cast, Mathur's inside man immediately got up and left to make his usual phone call. I don't know why we don't just come right out and say, "OK, Bowdler Boy. You can go call Raghu now. Give the fellow our love.")

Stay tuned. Things could get pretty. Or they could get ugly.

My money's on ugly. —CW

†P.S.:
Speaking of accreditation and Raghu's cronies, remember this?
“[The] Accreditation Self-Study Chair [Ray Chandos] made substantive changes to [the report] or saw that a distinctly different report was submitted to you, external to the work of the committees as a whole and without opportunity for our review. The Self-Study Chair permitted non-committee members to alter the contents of our report without going through the committees for their responses or revision…[W]e have no way of determining what changes were made to the [report], when they were made, who made them, or what evidence base was used to support any such changes.”
—From the preface of the Supplemental Report for standards five and ten of the IVC accreditation self-study. July 31, 1998. (Signed by committee chairs and members.)

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

At the SOCCCD, always bet on ugly.

Anonymous said...

Here we go again ... yet another "Chicken Little" prognostication.

Anonymous said...

Your photo graphics of the Goo-ster are wonderful: this one reminds me of a painting I saw at the Chicago Institute of Art of "The Portrait of Dorian Gray." I am a bonehead in that I cannot recall the artist. I'll try to find his name.

Anonymous said...

A GOOD DAY FOR THE GOOD GUYS!

More Than 60 Insurgents Killed
Sunday, September 30, 2007

BAGHDAD — U.S. and Iraqi forces on Sunday reported killing more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles over the weekend mainly in the north of the country, with most of the casualties believed to have been Al Qaeda fighters.

Anonymous said...

50% law problems? Look no further than ATEP.

ATEP = Another Tremendously Expensive Project

Anonymous said...

I wonder if someone, Beth Mueller perhaps, could explain exactly what is "Location 9" in the SOCCCD's budget

Anonymous said...

Does Liz look happier on Mondays?

torabora said...

The fact that the Board Four are behind the last minute accred response is tacit proof that they held an illegal serial meeting....yet another naked Brown Act Violation. Those guys deserve a banana republic of their own. I feel for you folks! A nightmare AND a train wreck!

Anonymous said...

Is that last writing--in blue--for real? How can these people get away with this stuff? Why aren't they in jail?

Your board should be very ashamed. So should your citizens.

Good grief.

Anonymous said...

One must wonder what exactly drives the people on the Board Of Trustees and of course Mathur.

Can this all be worth the trouble? Being so nasty to so many people consumes a lot of time and human spirit, - so why be so? Why continue to serve if your only purpose is to constantly cause upset, dissension and to be so nasty to people? Why consume so much life just for the purpose of being such assholes all the time? Why?

Oh yeah, we know the answer, its about 'power for the sake of power' at all costs, even to one's own health.

That is a very sad way to live one's life. Especially if one is a turn coat such as Mr. Lang.

Anonymous said...

Your union needs to get on the 50% rule like stink on Sunny Girl's poo-poo.

Even better, your district's CCFS 311 will be out in a few weeks. It's the official budget report to the state, which CEO's and CFO's sign under penalty of perjury.

Look for the line that says ending balance. It's line 905. That number is what your district did not spend last year; it's also commonly called a reserve.

Put the ending balance for fiscal year 06-07 into the numerator of a fraction. Put the total revenues--line 801--into the denominator of the fraction.

You'll end up with a percentage. I'll bet your reserves will be at least 10% and maybe as much as 15 or 20% of last year's actual budget.

That's way, way too much. Of course, districts should set aside a prudent amount in case of a rainy day. But it's not gonna rain all day every day.

So what's prudent? Any K-12 superintendent would think she died and went to heaven if there were a 5% reserve.

A dirty secret in the California community college system is that all 77 cc districts have a combined $3/4 billion in reserve. That's billion with a b.

Back to the 50% rule: If your district has x dollars in reserves, and if the 50% rule requires that half a district's income must go to instruction, then half of what's in reserve is money that should have gone to teachers, no?

--100 miles down the road

Anonymous said...

11:58am - there are 72 community college districts in California not 77. Second, it is not 50% of income that needs to go instructional salaries and benefits, it is 50% of general fund unrestricted expenditures. You should check your facts and numbers first before posting to this blog and trying to appear smart.

Anonymous said...

Hey 8:22 -- It's nicer to try to expand people's knowledge than dump on them for errors. "Trying to appear smart?" Don't be so smarmy. Address the points raised - and when/if your corrections matter to them, work out why and how. That would be helpful (and if being helpful is not what you're about, please go away).

Anonymous said...

Knowledge should not expanded with wrong information. It is the wrong information that you posted that does not help. As I said, get your facts and numbers straight first. When you do, maybe you will also have a valid point.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 8:22 p.m.:

I didn't know this was your blog.

And it's free advice.

So 72, not 77, California community college districts have accumulated a surplus of $3/4 billion. That's worse, isn't it?

Governing Boards have a ficuciary responsibility to the taxpayers which includes spending tax money on education, not letting it sit around in a slush fund.

If your district has millions and millions in reserve, then it's pretty difficult not to argue that part of it belongs to faculty.

You're right that it's 50% of general fund unrestricted money that's must be spent on instruction, not 50% of all revenue. But unrestricted money is most--like 90%--of your budget.

You sound like a union guy who knows what he's talking about. So get on the stick and put some of that money in faculty pockets.

--ciento seisenta y dos kilometros

Anonymous said...

Our Union (and the two Senates) are on this like stink on Sunny Girl's poo-poo. Thanks 100 miles down the road, for the tip about the reserves. I'm headed to Dracula this afternoon and I'll be bringing up the reserve issue. So, far, they are leaking the data slowly, one sheet at a time. But, the Union and the Senates filed a Public Records Act Request requesting the data be aggregated for the four "units", the two Colleges, ATEP, and the District. The aggregated data will clearly show nothing in the numerator for ATEP and the District. It will also show increased expenditures at ATEP and the District, which is mostly all denominator stuff. The Union also requested the total expenditures and the total monies recieved. The reserve account should raise a giant red flag. I'm glad you are reading this Alannah, see you this afternoon. And, thanks for the info 100 miles.

Anonymous said...

ATEP = Another Tremendously Expensive Project

Anonymous said...

At the SOCCCD, always bet on ugly.

??

With Mathur, always bet on ugly and mean.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...