Chair and Board Attorney say that all Community College President need do is meet minimum requirements set by state statute when making fiscal report; this minimum standard, they say, is adopted Board policy; Chevalier says more could be provided
Written comments at the January 12 Board meeting by Third District Representative Paul Chevalier, in his response to what is called an “Executive Limitation” report, drew a somewhat fiery response from Governing Board Chair Deb McCasland whose views were generally supported by the Governing Board Attorney. Chevalier wrote in part in response to the report that “The College, while not required by the Board to do so, could provide a detailed transparent budget as [do] all the major public entities in our county.” He said because the Community College does not do this, “I am in the dark, so is the public,” about how the College allocates resources.
Chair Deb McCasland argued that Chevalier’s comments were not appropriate because “we have addressed as a Board the budget format,” which was passed by a majority of the Board, and “we move forward with one voice.” She also said she was reminding Chavlier “of [his] responsibility as a Board member.”
Chevalier said that the Governing Board policy regarding a financial data report “didn’t prohibit the College president from doing more” than required by the state statute. He said his comments were an attempt to encourage the president “to do more” when sending the Governing Board a budget.
The Governing Board attorney, Ms. Lynn Adams, said Mr. Chevalier could make a suggestion but not a direction. Chevalier said he was not making a direction. Ms. Adams also said that she interpreted Mr. Chevalier’s remarks as meaning the College president did not meet the minimum requirements as set down by the Governing Board for this report. Finally, it appeared that from her perspective, Mr. Chevalier had a criteria different from that of the Board policy for assessing this report and technically, if she was correct, he should not be using it.
From the Blog’s perspective, the conversation seemed more about wordsmithing than anything else. For example, had Mr. Chevalier said in his comments that the President met the state statutory requirements as set out by Governing Board policy, but he would have preferred more information, it would be difficult to challenge because he still has a right to state his own view on the issue. At the same time he is recognizing that the Community College president met the existing Governing Board policy.
In the end, the report was unanimously approved by the Governing Board. You may view the eight minute back and forth on the issue of providing greater transparency on the College budget in the video clip below.