By Greg Horner, Senior Editor.
This month’s Board of Trustees meeting proved out of this world as faculty and board members met at Delta’s Planetarium in downtown Bay City Nov. 10. The board has made it a habit to host one meeting a year at each of the college’s satellite campuses.
The board heard a presentation from Traci Moon of Andrews Hooper Pavlik PLC, who was brought in to perform an independent review of the school’s accounting. Moon discussed the school’s financial statements and audit for the fiscal year 2014-15.
The major takeaways from the presentation are:
- Andrews Hooper & Pavlik provided a clean audit for the five major sections of Delta’s financial records.
- Revenue is down slightly due to a continuing decrease in student enrollment
- The school has begun implementing policy and funding changes to employee pensions in compliance with standards set by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board statement 68.
The board unanimously voted to accept the financial statements and audit.
Discussion then returned to a contentious topic for the board — the president’s emergency succession plan. The board delayed accepting the plan at earlier meetings in September and October due to concerns some trustees have over its language; while revisions have been made, some members still had difficulty accepting it.
Trustee Earl Selby suggested that all instances of the word “shall” in the plan be changed to “may.”
“I’m very reluctant to support something that has ‘shall’ in it because a ‘shall’ is mandatory,” said Selby. “I don’t want to put a future board in the position of being in trouble or at risk for not having done something deemed to be mandatory.”
Selby also saw no reason for the plan to include a section dealing with planned absences. “I have problems with an emergency plan being applied to a planned leave of absence — if the leave of absence is planned then it’s not an emergency”
However, Treasurer Deb Lutz pointed out that several instances of the word “shall” were intended and that changing all uses of it would create more confusion. Ultimately the board agreed to postpone action on the succession plan until a special committee composed of Trustees Earl Selby, Mary Morrisey, Robert Emrich, Diane Middleton and Mike Rowley addressed the concerns.
Other topics covered at the meeting included:
- The meeting began with a demonstration from Planetarium Manager Mike Murray, who showed off the facility’s capabilities and said the building is still considered state of the art. Murray said he hopes to incorporate the planetarium into more curriculums than just astronomy by using the facility to present cells and microscopic particles.
- Dorian Phelps, from the student & civic engagement department, gave a presentation highlighting the success of Delta’s Possible Dream Program. Former Possible Dream student, Jeffery Dukes, told the board that the program exposed him to a variety of unique people and subjects that he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to experience.
- Ginny Przygocki, dean of career education and learning partnerships, talked about the college’s experience with dual enrollment. The popularity of dual enrollment has been rising in the past few years and the school is working with local school districts to capitalize on the trend.
- Deb Lutz gave the monthly Treasurer’s report. According to Lutz, Delta remains in good cash standing and has received its first portion of state funding for the year. Revenue is down due to declining enrollment but there are no variances in budget to report.
- During the President’s Report, Jean Goodnow announced that Delta College is one of for community colleges in the state to receive a grant to fund new ways of preventing sexual assault. The project will be directed by Loyce Brown, equity officer and manager of the center for organizational success.
