Trustees hold December Board Meeting

The Butler Community College Board of Trustees met at 4:30 p.m. Dec. 4 in person and via Zoom. The agenda had planned for an executive session prior to the meeting, but that was removed.  

BOARD ACTION ITEMS

The board considered the recommendation of the administration to approve modifications to the College’s operating budget that were presented at the November board meeting.

Trustee Shelby Smith told the board that the tax statements sent out by the County Treasurer had a slight rounding error, and per his conversation with County Administrator Will Johnson the error will be corrected. It appears that the error is approximately one-half of one percent of the amount of tax levied for the College.

Trustee Smith questioned the operating budget recommendation of the administration to eliminate employee furloughs. The furloughs had been approved by the board in the budget that was passed in August. The elimination of the furloughs created an add-back of approximately $402,000 to the operating budget.

Kent Williams, vice president of finance, related that the recommendation to eliminate the furloughs was considered by the senior administrative team. The team believes there is a good chance that the unspent budget estimate for the current year is likely underestimated by at least $402,000 due to modifications in operations due to the pandemic, and that the negative effect of the furloughs would be extremely detrimental to employee morale. Also, the administration does not expect the state budget cuts to materialize this budget year which also results in higher-than-expected revenue. Therefore, the administrative team recommended eliminating the furloughs and adding back $402,000 to the budget.  

After a good deal of board discussion, the recommendation was passed with trustees Smith and Winslow voting in opposition.

STANDING REPORTS

Trustees heard brief reports from Lisa Bolin, operational staff president, and Terry Sader, faculty senate president. Trustee Forrest Rhodes provided an update for the Foundation Board. He noted the Foundation will be altering their annual benefit auction held in March and will be planning a virtual event due to COVID. In addition, the Foundation has welcomed several new board members to include John Blickenstaff '85, president, J&H Trucking, Inc.; Aletra Chaney-Profit, director of Career Services, Butler Community College; Nelson Mosley, Chief of Police in Rose Hill; Betsy Redler, community volunteer; and Jay Stehley, interim president for HealthCare of Wichita, Inc. In addition, the Foundation’s 2020 financial audit was approved by external accountants with assets recorded at $15 million.

Mary Martha Good provided a Kansas Association of Community College Trustees (KACCT) and Dr. Krull provided a Council of President’s report. Both organizations are preparing their legislative agendas for the 2021 legislative session.  

“We continue to believe that the state needs to fund Excel and CTE SB155,” Krull stated. This action allows high school students can take certain technical courses for free and then the state reimburses the colleges for that enrollment.  

Trustee Chair Jim Howell highlighted the Education Facilities Authority Report which addresses needs for the joint BG Products Veterans Sports complex in El Dorado. The committee approved a policy for assessing and reviewing capital improvements on the property Howell noted the facility, built in 2012, is aging and the partners, El Dorado City, the school district and the college, are preparing their approach for managing and paying for routine maintenance and more expensive capital improvements.

Other actions items taken by the board was the acceptance of three retirements by longtime faculty members: Melody Choate, 30-year math instructor, Adnan Fahs, 30-year math instructor, and Robert Ray, 18-year Computer Information Technology instructor.  

RECOGNITIONS

Kevin Lann Teubner, associate professor of Computer Information Technology was recognized for earning an Amazon Web Service (AWS) Cloud Practitioner Certificate. This is the first of three certifications he is working on in relation to the AWS environment. Once certified, he can train Butler computer majors on the same certifications.

CONSENT AGENDA

The Consent Agenda was approved 4 to 1 with Trustee Julie Winslow voting no due to grammatical errors in the November Board minutes and some questions she had. Trustees are asked at the beginning of the meeting if any items need pulled from the Consent Agenda for discussion. The Consent Agenda otherwise, is not open for discussion at the time of the vote. Bills and Warrants for November 2020 were approved at $4,967089.62 which included an Expenditure Approval List of $2,167,077.28 and Payroll of $2,800,012.34.

The full meeting can be viewed at BCTV Channel 20 on Youtube.