Hi folks. It’s Daren Otten, Superintendent/President here at Copper Mountain College, with your follow up report from the last Thursday, June 12th, regular board meeting. We kicked that board meeting off with a closed session that there was no action taken by the Board of Trustees. And moving right into the regular meeting, we got a chance to swear in our new Student Trustee Davis Davis. Looking forward to working with Davis this year. It’s going to be a lot of fun as we explore some of his priorities and ultimately as he works to learn, being a student trustee.
We had a couple of employee introductions, including Emily Rupp, our new Research and Planning Specialist, and Emily got a chance to share a little bit of her background, and I’m excited to have her on the team. There was also a Star Award review shared by Chief Human Resources Officer Jenn Baker for Heather Sanchez.
And then we moved into a lot of the general business items, all of these things. There’s more information if you want specifics on the Community website, but specifically on these items, it opened up public comments related to the initial proposals between CSEA and Copper Mountain Community College District. All of the items are outlined there that intend to be discussed for the full sunshine proposal that the district and the bargaining unit will be talking about over the next several months.
Moving into regular board reports, there is normal things presented, although we were a little light with a few people out, but we did get a chance to get a background from new ASCMC student government President Sean Carter, who shared a little bit about his background. And again, also really looking forward to working with Sean and Davis as we embark on a new academic year.
The board approved the Workplace Violence Prevention Plan and then also moved into the tentative budget. And I wanted to spend a few minutes today just reminding folks of the process and where we go from here and what happens next. So, the board approved the tentative budget, which is exactly that is the tentative budget that allows the district to pay their bills on July 1st. The irony of all this stuff is that we don’t actually know what our apportionment or allocation ultimately is, because when the board approved this, the state had not yet approved a budget for this next year. So, as the state moves through this process, they will clarify their numbers, share them with us. And sometime about middle of August or so, we’ll have exactly all the details there, along with all the rollover information, as the books are closed in the business office. This will then be presented to the board as the final budget in September, which will have a few more things in extreme detail, ensuring that we are meeting our plans and goals.
But the good news is, is that we are financially in very good shape. We continue to be able to address our liabilities from the district standpoint, whether that’s OPEB or STRS and PERS retirement liabilities, the ongoing increased costs that we haven’t had to pass on to employees in healthcare or have to pass on to students in the ways of some of the technology and other things that the district has to pay for. It’s good that the district has been able to fully fund all of their liabilities, and we are projecting at this point that the district will be about $200,000 positive in our ultimate kind of budget for the year. So that’s very positive. It will provide us a little bit of flexibility as we navigate everything from negotiations to unforeseen expenses that may come up.
But again, I want to thank the board and all the teams that have been working on this particular thing for many years now. But again, the business office who prepares the budget every year really has to get into the nitty gritty and does all the heavy lifting and hard work. So big high five there for specifics. And if anybody has any questions or if there’s any groups, Meredith is always willing to come and present the budget information to any of those particular groups.
As the board then wrapped up the meeting, it was primarily talking about the July upcoming meeting, which is going to focus on a goal study session for both them and myself. They’ll be doing their own annual self-evaluation, and then they’ll be moving through the process of drafting some goals for the Board of Trustees, drafting some goals for the Superintendent/ President, which will then be disseminated to constituent groups. And ultimately, I expect that the board will be approving all of those things by September. So, there’ll be plenty of time for feedback throughout that process.
So, with that, I hope everybody stays cool. And again, as always, if you want more information, check out Community for all the details.
