November 12, 2021 - BOD Minutes

ECTC Board of Directors (BOD) Meeting

Elizabethtown Community and Technical College
Springfield Campus, Room 211
Friday, November 12, 2021, 9:30 a.m. EST

Attendees

CALL TO ORDER

For the record, the Board of Directors meeting held November 12, 2021 was held in-person and via Microsoft Teams.

Chair Stan Routt called the regular board meeting to order at 9:33 a.m. EST.

DISCUSSION

Welcome, Introductions, and Announcements

• Chair Routt welcomed everyone to the Springfield campus.  Attendance was called and recorded.

Approval of Minutes

• MOTION: Mr. Mike Phillips made the motion to approve the September 10, 2021 minutes as presented and Mr. Howard Williams seconded the motion.
• VOTE: The minutes were approved by unanimous consent.

New Business

Legislative Update:

• Dr. Pate provided the board with a legislative update.  We are entering a legislative session and a two-year biennial budget will be approved.
• The renovation of the Occupational Technical Building remains the number one capital project for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.  We are going to pursue having this project included as a line item in the budget.
• We have a project written into Senate Bill 5 regarding the investment made by Ford and SK Innovations at Glendale for a $25 million training facility.
• Question: Will ECTC receive an equitable share of the funding available between all 16 KCTCS colleges?
• Answer: All 16 colleges work together as a team unit; most likely some colleges will receive a greater amount of funding than others.
• We have moved to a performance based funding model which means the money allocated to our college will be based on the success of our students and the size of our college.  We are asking for the money invested by the state into the KCTCS system to be allocated based on the performance funding model.

Certificate of Receipt

• All board members have signed and returned the required Certificate of Receipt stating they have received the current versions of “The Kentucky Open Records and Open Meeting Acts: A guide for the public and public agencies” and “Managing Government Records: A Cooperative Undertaking.”

REPORTS

Provost/CAO Report:

Interim Provost/CAO, Mr. Darrin Powell, shared his report with the board:

• We have just completed our first 8-week session.  Our success rate (the percentage of students who have passed a class) for the first Fall 2021 bi-term was 77.8%.  Our Fall 2019 success rate for all sessions was 70.1% and our Fall 2020 success rate for all sessions was 70.4%.
• Currently, 74% of our classes are in the 8-week format.  Some classes meet in-person, some are hybrid, and some are online.
• Our enrollment numbers have improved compared to this time last year, but we are not quite back to the numbers we had prior to COVID-19.  In the past, we have included Fire and Rescue enrollment numbers in our total enrollment figures, however, this year we are not including those numbers in overall enrollment numbers.
• Our dual credit numbers have increased by about 500 students compared to this time last year and our dual credit enrollment comprises one-third of our total enrollment.
• ECTC now has three full-time staff members who work on dual credit.
• Since July 2021 the Workforce Solutions department has:
  • Offered 53 classes
  • 32 ongoing Kentucky TRAINS projects
  • Restarted a motorcycle program consisting of 5 classes
  • Begun module 1 of the Coding Academy (module 2 will begin in January)
  • Three CDL classes with a 100% pass rate
  • 15 training classes for Nucor
  • 15 Metallica scholars
• Our nursing department has a new Nursing Coordinator, Sandra Marques, and after the first 8-week term, all faculty agree the nursing students will be successful and we will have a higher success rate compared to past years.  This is a big shift from recent history where approximately 50% of our nursing students left the program by mid-term.

Chief Finance and Facilities Officer Report:

Mr. Brent Holsclaw, Chief Finance and Facilities Officer, shared his report with the board:

Finance:

• Overall, our financial situation has not changed much from this time last year.  From a budget standpoint, we are in a good financial position.
• On November 8, 2021 we were down 300 credits from this time last year which equals about 25 students.
• Our salary expenses were approximately 3% higher this year and this was anticipated, our operating expenses are in good standing and we currently have about 62% of our expense reserves remaining, and our discretionary spending is slightly up from past years.  Some of our discretionary funding has been allocated to the University Center and we have recently upgraded our security camera system.
• Next month, we will begin the planning process for our fiscal year 2023 budget.

Facilities:

• Recently, ECTC held a celebration event signaling the close of the University Center campaign.  Bids were submitted this week for the University Center and we hope to know the numbers in the near future.
• Our science lab renovation phase A has been completed and we are putting the next phase of this project on hold until additional options can be further explored.
• We are in the process of creating a master plan for the Leitchfield and Springfield campuses.  We anticipate these plans to be completed during February 2022.
• Currently, there are two roofing projects underway on campus, the Academic Technical Building and the Regional Postsecondary Center.

Institutional Advancement Report:

Ms. Megan Stith shared her report with the board:

• A former student has been hired to fill a vacant recruiting position and she has been reaching out to area high schools.
• ECTC has made 29 in-person visits to high schools this semester and has conducted 18 tours to regional high school students.
• Megan Stith recently attended an event in collaboration with Hardin County Schools where over 700 seventh grade girls met with women in the community including six of our faculty and staff members who spoke with the students about career options, and more specifically, careers that are typically male dominated.
• The Institutional Advancement office has continued working on digital campaigns and promotional materials specifically geared toward the 8-week schedule.
• The University Center campaign had 58 donors and received $2,135,318 in community support.  Forty percent of the donors were first-time givers to ECTC.
• ECTC recently received a $648,000 grant award through the USDA that will be used to expand our distance learning program for our dual credit students.
• ECTC received a $4,000 donation from the Carver Foundation specifically for minority and low-income supported male students.
• Our grants office recently submitted two proposals, one of which is part of the LTADD economic development authority request that is focused on workforce and we are the lead applicant on this request.  The other was a $250,000 Coding Academy proposal.
• On November 10, 2021 ECTC was officially named and recognized as a Purple Heart College.  During this event, we announced a new scholarship that has been created for veterans and made possible by Abound Credit Union.
• Each board member received an October 2021 Elizabethtown Lifestyle magazine and inside is an article on one of our scholarships and the donor who established the scholarship fund.

President/CEO Report:

Dr. Juston Pate shared his report with the board:

• ECTC’s COVID-19 response has not changed and our positive numbers remain quite low.
• In response to President Biden’s mandate that all employers with over 100 employees will have to require vaccines or weekly testing, ECTC has begun preparations in the event this is enforced by January 2022.
• ECTC is unable to provide across the board raises as a college, the Board of Regents must approve across the board raises for all colleges.  ECTC did look at two specific groups on campus to provide salary adjustments.  One group consists of those who have been long time employees of ECTC and do not earn market value salaries.  The other positions are those that are hard to fill.  For example, we had four vacant nursing positions at one time and by increasing the salary of each position we were able to fill each position without going through multiples rounds of postings and interviews.
• ECTC is working to assist students who need developmental education in the areas of English, reading and math.  The Council on Postsecondary Education has limited the number of developmental courses we can offer.  Any needs a student has remaining once the developmental courses have been completed need to be addressed by the educational institution.  At this time, ECTC is considering offering a free developmental course to assist those students who need additional help once they have completed all other developmental courses.  In an effort to fund this, we are exploring various grants and additional funding opportunities.
• ECTC is entering into a partnership with the Family Scholar House, an organization that assists and houses students, primarily homeless, low-income students and their families, single parents, and 18-year-olds who have left the foster care system.
• All of the services provided by the Family Scholar House to our students are free of charge for the students.

MEETING ADJOURNMENT

A motion was made by Mr. Howard Williams and seconded by Mr. Mike Phillips to adjourn the meeting, motion carried.

The meeting adjourned at 11:04 a.m. EST.

NEXT BOARD MEETING

The next Board of Directors meeting will be held February 11, 2022.

Minutes respectfully submitted by,