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| The problem is you don't understand |
Some of you may have read the scathing comments made by employees in the recent district “climate survey.” Interestingly, Poertner’s “perspective” includes discussion of “a few comments from employee surveys that illustrate a lack of understanding about roles and responsibilities.” I do believe that the Chancellor is referring in part to some comments provided during that survey:
“The district does not give my department sufficient supply and equipment budgets.”
Funds are annually distributed through the District Resource Allocation Committee (DRAC), a participatory governance group, to each college and district services. All college departments are funded out of college funds and all of those decisions and allocations are made at the college level without interference from the chancellor or district services. Similarly, all district services funds are allocated through the chancellor’s office.
“District Services seems to think it is over the colleges and not the other way around.”
District services serves employees and departments at both the colleges and district services. District services employees are also tasked with ensuring that processes, policies, compliance, system or legal requirements are met. This should not be misconstrued as district services thinking it is “over the colleges.” One example is labor agreements. Every college and district department must comply with labor laws and existing agreements regarding prevailing wages, etc. These functions are centralized in district services to ensure continuity and compliance. This may frustrate a college department that wants to make independent decisions, however the district must protect itself from legal liability and safeguard the taxpayers that provide our funding.
Conversely, when payroll or accounting processes requests for departments, it doesn’t mean the colleges are “over district services.” Everyone in this district is serving someone and everyone in this district needs services from someone. We could all benefit from being service oriented. Any focus on one entity “over” another only serves to divide us and divert time, money and energy to issues that don’t serve our students and community. Let’s think about being team members that work together with differing but equally important functions.
“Human Resources gives inconsistent advice about personnel issues. They give one answer in one situation and another to someone else.”
Not every human resources issue is exactly the same, though it may appear to be for those who work outside of HR. Personnel issues are complex. Problems arise when employees “shop” this department by speaking to different people because they don’t like the first answer. Some employees may not understand who the right person is for the issue and we are working on improving this.
“The trustees are not aware of the poor executive leadership within our district.”So, there you have it. The problem, evidently, is that you don't understand roles and responsibilities. You silly nattering nabobs of negativism!
The trustees supervise only one employee – the chancellor. The chancellor supervises and evaluates the college presidents and vice chancellors and informs the board annually about their performance.
