College accountability shrinks as information to taxpayers narrows; Wills in full agreement with elimination of the three public meeting dates
The Yavapai Community College Governing Board voted 4-1 (McCasland “no”) to eliminate monthly meetings in June, July, and August of each year. (A June meeting could be called if the budget was not approved in May.) The result is that the sparse information now flowing from the College to County taxpayers is reduced even more.
Chair Sigafoos suggested three reasons for eliminating the monthly meetings. One involved the amount of time to drive from Prescott to the East side of the County. A second involved a statement that he would like “to have the meetings have more content that is meaningful.” He said “we hear reports that are nice but let’s try and do something with the content of the meeting.” A third suggestion was that staff weren’t around much during those months.
President Wills had been contacted by Sigafoos before the meeting and said at the meeting that she was in total agreement with the idea of eliminating 25% of the yearly public meetings.
From the Blog’s perspective, the Board and College are increasingly developing a closed-door process that keeps from the County owner-taxpayers’ view most of the College’s operation. This decision fits like a glove and strikes at the very heart of government accountability by publicly supported institutions.
Deb McCasland dissented indicating her concern about taxpayers having more knowledge and providing the Board with more stakeholder input. She is the only Board member who consistently raises the interests of the stakeholders who are the citizens residing in the County and who pay the property taxes to support the Community College.
You may view the highlights of the discussion in the video below. You may also view the entire video by going to the Agenda for September 2017 Click here to see Meeting Videos and follow instructions.