The other thing that sets us
apart is our personalization.
This was a bitter-sweet decision to retire
and my biggest concern is that personalness,
that when callers call that they will have a human voice,
someone that has compassion,
that remembers their voices,
know who they talked to.
If it does go to automated and down the road,
it doesn't work out,
I am still offering to do the switchboard part-time.
It was what I was hired for,
it's what I love.
I love people, and yesterday all the calls to
the switchboard were people
wanting to hear my voice one last time.
The last thing is my Cayuga isn't just for students,
my Cayuga is because we're family, all employees,
especially the front line,
are so dedicated because we love this institution,
we love our students,
and they love us.
Just remember that we are all family,
and I thank you so much for this opportunity,
and I apologize for the tears.
Thank goodness I didn't have mascara on [LAUGHTER].
Thank you.
Thank you so much, everyone.
Thank you.
Laura-lee, thank you so much for your years of service.
It has meant a tremendous amount
for people to have a welcoming,
friendly voice and face
when they come to that campus, so thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you, and congratulations.
Laura-lee, I'd like to congratulate you.
I didn't know you're retiring.
It was always joyfully to hear your voice when I
call the college and you direct me to the right areas.
Thank you for your years of service at the college
and I wish you well in your future endeavors
and hopefully you'll stay in contact with
us and keep in contact with us in the future.
Good luck in your future endeavors.
Thank you. You're rid of me yet [LAUGHTER]
Great. Any other comments from the public?
We'll move on to the consent agenda,
which contains the minutes of the December meeting,
signed review of monthly bills
which Chair Hutchinson has signed off on.
For January, grand total of $1,808,272.07,
and stipend lists six through 11 for
a grand total of 197,459.88.
Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?
I'll make a motion.
Have a second?
Second.
All in favor?
Aye.
I[OVERLAPPING].
Okay. Moving on to
committee meeting notes and
resolutions for this morning finance and audit,
I know Ms. Hutchinson
needed to be absent this morning so,
Mr. Klinck, I believe you're
on to present for finance and audit.
I am. Good morning, everyone.
Everyone had a copy of our February 11th,
2021 notes, so you've already read that.
We have Jon Miller this morning from Bonadio Group,
he's going to go over the 2019,
2020 audit.
Jon, you're on.
Thank you very much.
I'm also joined this morning by Kelsey Dempsey,
who was the manager on the engagement,
and as John just said that
we are here to present the results of the audit.
On February 11th, we went through
a much longer version
with the finance and audit committee,
so today will be an abbreviated version and I'm going
to share screen so you're
well aware of what I am discussing.
I will walk you through the high-level oversight,
you'll see some themes with this,
and the main theme is uncertainty,
or really the main theme is
the only thing certain is the uncertainty.
During the audit between
the federal funding for the CARES Act that came through
the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund and
also the impact of that fund in
other decisions occurring at SUNY,
I like to say that I think it's
an understatement to say we were
building the plane as we're flying it.
As Marie and her team were
really trying to understand what the impact of
those funds coming to the college would be
financially for the year we audited as well,
as well as the future year.
Kelsey is going to briefly touch on the statement of
financial position and operating results
and then we'll look at some key trends.
What I have up is the executive summary,
and what we discussed was we plan to issue
an unmodified opinion on the financial statements.
That opinion also includes the component units,
which is the foundation
and the faculty-student association.
Internal control; we did not
identify any material weaknesses.
That is a great thing, especially when you think about
my opening with a lot of
things going in a lot of different directions.
We did identify deficiencies in internal control and
that really results around
the next comment related to audit adjustments,
there was a lot of post-closing adjustments.
But as we discussed at the committee
and if you really think about it,
Marie had less than a year of acting CFO under her belt
prior to the pandemic
and she was in the process of developing her team.
Reflecting on today and where we were a year ago,
I was actually in Marie's office a year ago trying to
get this audit done for the 2019 year.
We're presenting actually a month earlier,
so that does show a positive move in the right direction.
All accounting policies and estimates,
we deem those to be reasonable in
relation to the financial statements as a whole.
We did discuss at the committee level,
there are significant estimates,
especially as it relates to the OPEB,
which is the post-retirement health obligations
for your retirees as well as the cost sharing plans,
the TRS and ERS plan.
Those are reflected as liabilities in
the financial statements that Kelsey
will [NOISE] walk you through in a minute.
Then lastly, the audit of federal funds.
The college received $9.9 million of federal funds,
9.4 of that was through the financial aid program,
also included there is the HEERF funding as well,
that was what I mentioned earlier through the CARES Act.
These programs are very
complex and especially with the HEERF trying to
understand what was going on and
how to distribute that to the students,
and we're very pleased to report there were
no findings identified during the single audit.
That not only reflects on Marie's department,
that's also the [inaudible] department
and financial aid department,
really an effort as a college as a whole.
With that, I'll have Kelsey walk you through some of
the key financial indicators on
the statement and that position.
Good morning everyone.
The first thing I want to point out to everyone is that
these financial statements are on the GASB full accrual.
That includes the college's, pension, OPEB,
and capital assets that are
not reported throughout the year.
One thing that I think is really great that's happened at
the college is that your current ratio,
which is your current assets
divided by your current liabilities,
is really strong and that's what the college can
actually really control [NOISE].
The financial position and how well the college is
poised to continue paying their debts during the year.
That's very strong,
continues to be very strong for the college.
Next, if you look in the middle of
the page, your deferred outflows,
that has actually gone up pretty
significantly in the current year from 4.3
million last year to $14.2 million this year.
That increase is mainly due to a decrease or to
a change in the actuarial
assumptions throughout the year,
and that's nothing that the college is controlling.
However, that's for the pension and your OPEB,
so it has had a significant change throughout
the year which has had an impact
on your overall net position.
However, it's very normal and it's a reflection
of future benefits and liabilities of the college.
If you want go on to the.
I was just going to draw out.
Kelsey mentioned that deferred outflows and inflows,
think of those as timing differences
and they'll be cash payments in the future.
But also to point out this other post
retirement benefits that $45.4 million,
that's a liability, that
represents future payments that the college
will have to make for
benefits employees have earned today.
Then you can also see the net pension liability
of the seven million
and that's what's bringing your
unrestricted on the full Gatsby basis,
to a deficit of 40.6 and Kelsey will show
you how that reconciles on the state report on this page.
Yes, so you'll see here
that your unrestricted fund balance at
the end of the year actually
increased by almost a million dollars, which is very,
very impressive for the college
and that increases mainly due to
a decrease in the colleges
operating expenses during the year of about $1.1 million.
That decrease in operating expenses is
mainly due to salaries.
As the college really understood that there
were decreases in enrollment,
therefore, they held open,
vacant positions throughout 2020.
Additionally, due to COVID-19,
the college put in a spending freeze in April of 2020,
which resulted in additional decreases and expenses
mostly for utilities, travel, supplies.
Then finally, at the end of June,
the college did lay off some part-time employees,
which also decreased
the operating expenses throughout the year.
It's really very impressive that the college
is increasing that fund balance,
however, the college does intend to use some of
that fund balance in fiscal year 2021.
With Kelsey commenting that the
increase of fund balance and the optimism,
I guess I might be the doom and gloom on this.
What we look at when we look
at these key trends and remember,
these are what's being reflected
in your unrestricted fund,
and what's being reported to SUNY.
What we do see is positivity over
the five-year period that you've been more than
able to double your unrestricted fund balance.
You've been able to do that through here,
obviously the green line is your unrestricted revenues,
in the blue line is your unrestricted expense.
Any year that the green lines above the blue expanse,
you're adding to your fund balance.
But what we don't see on here is you're
decline in enrollment all this five-year period.
All community colleges in New York State,
I shouldn't say all but more than 90 percent
are experiencing a decline
in enrollment over the last five years,
mainly related to demographic trends in upstate New York.
Now what you don't also see on here is what the fiscal
2021 is in terms of what
the enrollment results are as well.
Reading a report that came out,
it was inside higher red earlier this week.
One of the most interesting things is
this is the first time I
guess in a long time or since
they've been studying it and also
I've seen in my experience with
audit in community colleges,
that we've actually seen an unemployment rate go
up yet your enrollment went down.
Typically that relationship is
an unemployment rate goes up,
individuals go back to the community college
to re-skill or getting education.
We've now seen it go down,
that speaks to the uncertainty,
and that also speaks to why you built up
the fund balance if you're going to need to
use it this year with declines in enrollment and
also your future budgeted years.
I'll skip over that page.
Then the other thing we share as we do benchmark,
where your net operating costs are per FTE with
other peer institutions of similar size.
I guess I'll say, one of the positives
that we've seen is that Cayuga
five-years ago was on top of this and
at least even though you're still in the top third,
you are coming down and what your cost is per FTE.
That's an addition to operating
essentially two campuses as well that impacts
your cost structures as you provide access to
students in Oswego County.
It will be very interesting to
see because you can obviously see there
was about a $600 increase
this year in operating costs per FTE.
Obviously, as enrollment goes down,
but your costs essentially remained stable,
went down about 200,000,
that's going to drive up the cost per FTE.
It's going to be interesting to see where the
remainder of these fall this year too,
with their expected enrollment declines
and how they reacted with their costs.
That was our brief presentation this morning,
I'll open it up to questions.
Just another chart of where your other institutions
on your peer institutions of your fund balance,
now I'll open it up to questions.
Lets just say I have a question.
Getting back the Gatsby where there are
$45 million deficits and debt that we have,
do you here any talk of how we need
start funding that or
what's going to happen in the future?
Some stage of the game, I think that
institutions are going to start putting
some money away before
it keeps getting higher and higher and higher and
no money set aside for
that indebtedness that we have on the books.
Yes, John, thank you for that question.
It's important for the whole board
to you hear this comment.
I mentioned you had
a $45 million liability
and your post employment benefits,
right now in New York state,
there is no legislative approval to
actually create a separate trust to fund that balance.
It's brought up every so
often in a bill and then the bill
comes to the legislature and it doesn't move forward.
Unlike your car sharing plans,
which you can actually legally set aside assets,
for an asset those future liabilities,
you're not able to do that with
the other post employment benefits.
However, just because you can't put them
into a trust does not prevent you as
an institution and as
a board saying that we want to internally
designate funds related to that
if you were to have excess cash balances.
It's something to think about as you plan for the future.
Where would you put that money aside,
how would that stay aside?
Because if you leave it in the fund balance
it could have an effect than funding from the state,
of course, because the way
the garbage bag comes back into.
You're correct, John so I just shared the screen again.
It would not actually
impact your unrestricted fund balances,
especially what you are reporting to SUNY,
which is essentially this page.
You're still going to come to the $4.5
million and a fund balance,
what you would do.
Within this current assets,
you have cash within this current assets.
What you would do is you would pass
a resolution and you would say,
all this unrestricted fund balance access designated.
On the Gatsby statements,
you could report designated for
future use and you could take it out of this deficit
of 40.6 and then you could
also show another line right here on
the asset side of your statement of net position
also designated for investments.
I have one institution that has done
that they did about about 10 years ago,
they set aside money.
But really, it's more of
a paper transaction that
they basically has set internally,
we designate X amount of
cash and they move that cash out of there,
operating cash that they can use.
But it does not impact what they're reporting
to SUNY as the unrestricted fund balance.
As long as we make that determination,
then it won't impact
the charge-backs because they know they look
at what the charge-back calculation
they look at your fund balance.
Correct. If your fund balance
we're going to go down because you use that,
they would just look at it as your total
unrestricted fund balance and what you use
as the funds as it comes from
the local source and they calculate the charge-backs.
Jonathan correct me if I'm wrong,
but if we add money to our fund balance,
and then it gets restricted it still has to
get recognized in the same way it always has,
that can potentially affect your charge-back later.
Correct. Brian this wouldn't be restricted by a grant or
donor or for
some various specific purpose or government grants.
This is considered unrestricted,
designated by the board if you were to do this,
so you're still reporting it
as unrestricted and that way your
charge-back would not be impacted
whether you used it or add it to it.
I understand, I was just trying
to add the layer that if we want to just
strategically grow a fund balance to build that reserve,
that would still affect
us because you have to recognize at
first as the [inaudible]
excess revenue at the end of the year.
Yes, that is a correct statement.
Thank you.
Any other question?
One last thing if I could,
I think people get confused
when we talk about fund balance.
You need to look at unrestricted and restricted,
that's the determination I think
when we are talking about unrestricted fund balance,
that's the money we have available to spend on something.
The restricted side is,
it's restricted and sometimes,
[NOISE] I don't know if we get
that determination at the end
when we talk about fund balance.
I think those things need to be broken out.
Yes, is John saying what you're reporting
assuming and your unrestricted fund [NOISE] balance is
$4.5 million.
Maybe this might [inaudible] ,
but I look at that as,
what happened on a cash basis,
what you really have in terms of essentially cash
which you reconcile all the time
your differences are $4.5 million.
What [inaudible] doesn't include in
that unrestricted fund balance is
what I said earlier about
the pension liabilities for $7 million in the
[inaudible] of $45.4 million.
Those liabilities on a full accrual basis
represent real liabilities that you'll have to pay,
and that's how your unrestricted fund balance comes
to a deficit of $40.6 million.
John is there when other institutions have
set aside funding to partially address that,
I'm assuming they don't set aside $45 million.
Are they setting aside enough to cover,
say an annual draw, potentially.
Why are they doing it?
What's the benefit? What's the advantage?
My other institution that did do it,
they have a much
higher post employment benefit liability than yours.
It's about three to four times higher,
depending on where in the actuaries
and the underlying assumptions are,
they looked at it 11 years ago,
they looked back roughly between
eight and 10 years ago when
enrollments were at their peak.
Remember coming off the Great Recession,
and they had excess cash and they said
this is the liability we're going to
have to address in the future,
and they went to their board and the
designated approximately $16 million.
That's not [inaudible] ,
they have not actually added to that,
but they did look at it basically
the same discussion we're having today,
this represents the actual cash payment
out in the future that we're going to have to make.
They do continue as they make payments
in the [inaudible] is considered as a pay as you go,
so as the underlying insurance company says,
"We paid out these."
What the insurance company will
say look under the college they'll say,
"This is what your premium is
this year because this was the plan is."
The college makes a payment every year
of cash that comes out of your operating cash.
What's not cashed is
the change in this liability every year, 45 million.
So even though they set aside 16 million dollars,
they're not taking when they get
a $1 million bill every year,
and taking it out of that
$60 million and then replenishing.
That's all happening in operations,
they just looked at it when they had access cash,
that they needed new address this issue and at
least start building it up in case
there were the point that it ever became legal
to actually set aside and separate trust.
Okay. Thank you, [NOISE] any other questions
for the [inaudible] group? Well, we thank you.
All right, thank you very much [OVERLAPPING].
Back to you Mr. Clink.
Okay thank you John.
Thank you.
We have a resolution
in front of us be it resolved that the 2019,
2020 Cayuga Community College
audit the accepted as presented by the
[inaudible] on 2/25/21 and
I'll put that in the form of
a motion do we have a second?
I'll second.
Okay thanks John [NOISE] Do we need roll-call?
I don't think so, do we?
I don't think so either.
We're not spending money so.
Yeah right [LAUGHTER] We are but [OVERLAPPING]
We are but we're not [OVERLAPPING].
[inaudible] did it for free.
Yeah there you go.
You already authorized that expenditure?
If I may though before you [OVERLAPPING].
Sure that's my next [inaudible]
Marie's not here today she's in a route coming back,
but I want to just take a moment to thank Marie and
certainly the rest of the finance staff at
the college for the work that they do in the audit and
the preparation and obviously the interactions.
Certainly we appreciate all the effort that goes into it
and as we continue to look at our internal controls,
we continue to look at
the opportunities to improve ourselves.
Anytime we can get the independent auditors to come in
and look and give us feedback, it's a great thing,
but all the work that goes into it and the effort,
certainly on behalf of the administration and myself.
I know our trustees have the same sentiments I want to
just thank the effort of our staff.
Thank you, Brian. I would just mention that
the finance and audit committee and [inaudible] went
through the audit in
much greater detail and John had
all kinds of positive remarks about Maria and her team.
Having said that, everybody who
is in favor of the resolution that I read,
please signify by saying "Aye".
Aye.
Carey, thank you very much.
All right.
That ends the finance and audit portion of the agenda.
Thank you, moving on to [NOISE]
governance and planning committee, Dr. [inaudible].
Good morning everyone.
You have in your packet our meeting notes,
I would like to highlight the fact
that Steve Keeler, Sheila Myers,
and Dr. [inaudible] presented a micro credential program.
Such programs are very important for
quick turnaround or quick as possible in New York State,
quick turnaround for workforce development and planning.
As we noted, the concept of
micro credentialing was one of
the major themes at the National Legislative Summit,
the ACCT whatever the other acronym is,
recently in February, that was terrific.
Since we met Brian and Kathy [inaudible]
and I had a brief meeting on
the by-laws and so they will be coming forward.
Few little things to be straightened out next month,
and I think we'll be able to get those passed very soon.
We have one resolution and again,
this is continuing our responsiveness
to the particular needs of students in
the modernization of our [NOISE] curriculum.
Such updating is absolutely essential for
the efficient operation of any educational institution,
so I would bring to you resolution 3.2.1,
[NOISE] approval to deactivate and discontinue
accounting AAS at the Auburn and Fulton campus.
Whereas it is central to
the mission of Cayuga
Community College to offer degree and
certificate programs that prepare
students for career employment and further study.
Whereas the deactivation and discontinuance of
the accounting AAS program
offered at Cayuga Community College,
Auburn and Fulton campus has been
approved by the faculty of the College.
Whereas student enrollment in
the Accounting AAS program has been declining
over the past 10 years and
dramatically declining in the past five years.
Whereas most students who do enroll in
the accounting AAS program
wants to transfer to a baccalaureate program
and accounting and are therefore best
served by our business administration AS degree,
while others will be best served by
three new micro credentials related to accounting.
Whereas the college must be
a good steward of its finances
and reallocate its resources to programs
the best meet students changing needs.
Now therefore, be it resolved that
the Board of Trustees of Cayuga Community College hereby
approves the deactivation and discontinuance of
the accounting AAS program
offered at Cayuga Community College,
Auburn and [NOISE] Fulton campus.
I make that as a motion.
I have a second.
Okay.
Any discussion?
Yeah. I just have a comment if I could please.
Go ahead
Thank you. I hope maybe at the next meeting Linda,
at our planning committee meeting,
we could talk about our transferability,
how we're making out with our students
transferring credits from Q1.
I think we need an update and then if we could.
This area is very close to me because I
graduated from Cayuga with an accounting degree.
I feel bad that we're
not continuing on with this program.
I know we have an excellent staff
there and faculty to teach us.
Cayuga has always been recognized as an area for
their accounting programs and so on and so forth.
I hope we can just look at this
because I had a problem with transferring
some of my credits from Cayuga when I left
in this program and I just want an update on
how we're making out because I know a while
ago that SUNY passed resolutions
that all credits from
two-year institutions will be able to
transfer to four-year institutions
and I'd like to know how we're making out with that.
If we could just have an update in the future at
our planning committee meeting
or one of the full trustee meetings, I'd appreciate that.
Okay. Great. I entirely agree, John,
that transferability is absolutely key and it's not
impossible that Dr. Cantor
will have some comments on that immediately.
I'm not putting words in his mouth,
but I know that that's one of
the things that the college has
been working on over the years.
So thank you very much.
Before Dr. Cantor responds,
one of the things that I just want to mention
that SUNY did pass
a seamless transfer initiative years ago and
focused on student mobility and looking from all of
its institutions and trying to strengthen
the Gen Ed programs and strengthen the access.
But one of the realities
that comes from that particular initiative,
and this is a good one and an important one
for us as community colleges,
is to pay attention though to what students should be
taking in the first two years to
best prepare them for that particular transfer.
This is what I know that the business division,
Eric Zizza and the faculty looked at,
is the transferability for
something like accounting or others,
a traditional business administration
focus at the first two years is probably best
align to set them up for
the transferability and where the accounting courses
which traditionally come in.
When we're talking about the guarantee of
courses or transfer the credits, that's true.
But one of the realities of the effort,
is that those courses only
transfer if the degree space exists for
the intended outcome or goal that a student may
have at the baccalaureate completion institution.
Then therefore, it's our responsibility to
ensure that when we're articulating a transfer path,
the right program or the right courses are
outlined and it may not have
the traditional name that it always did.
That's the value of having AS versus
AAS certificates career and credentials and so on.
I just want to make sure that there's
clarity amongst the board
that although the transferability
of credits is guaranteed,
it doesn't mean it's a certain grade or higher,
it still needs to fit within the program of study or
whatever program they're looking to
attend. Go ahead, Ron.
I would simply add that
our students interests with respect to transferability,
our interests and SUNY's interests,
all align and we've been working
on it and making considerable progress.
As evidence of that progress,
I would point to the exact resolution that's before you
now because really what we
had were three levels in accounting.
We had the transfer level,
we had the AAS not designed for transfer level and
now we've got the micro credential
and short-term credential level.
What we realized was,
some students need transfer,
some don't, that we can
clearly invest in two good options.
It was the one in the middle,
the AAS that was confusing people.
There were trying to transfer when they were
not in the program designed for transfer.
That's the program that we're
eliminating so that we can focus on
both transfer and others
who might not even need a degree,
but can get on with their skills.
I just want to check with Eric Zizza to
make sure I said all that correctly from your view.
You got it, Dr. Cantor.
That's a program that has
evolved and I agree with Mr. Camardo,
it's steeped in tradition.
One of the problems is the upper courses were too good.
The four-year campuses were saying,
we love when your accounting students
come with those classes, however,
we're going to make them retake them and that's
the accounting fundamentals of
one and two after the intro level.
Because of their accreditation issues,
they wanted folks to take those classes closer to
their exams and they wanted to take them on their campus.
Our students were extremely successful,
but it led to transfer issues.
In many ways, this reduction will clean that up and
smooth things out for students so they're not into
a situation where they've
got their classes that will transfer,
but as we've discussed,
they've taken the classes, they'll transfer,
but are they meeting the degree requirements?
That's what Dr. Durant was discussing.
It's a 100 percent right and
it looks like we're reducing something,
but in effect, we're actually paving the way for
more streamlined transfer and
better communication with our students.
Thank you very much, Eric.
I'm really glad you made that comment because I do
remember some of my transfer students at Cornell,
ending up having to take redundant courses and saying,
"The course I took at the community college
was actually better,
but I have to take it here."
It's extremely frustrating for
students, drives them crazy.
So thank you very much for that comment
and thank you for bringing up
the issue of transferability,
John, because we always need to understand
exactly how to best facilitate that for our students.
I have no more comments.
Linda, not to beat the point,
but I think it's a good one for
education for our board too.
I know that Ron and Eric
would agree with this as
they're from academic administration.
It also can be very frustrating disheartening to
faculty because our faculty
have the expertise and
the knowledge to be able to
successfully teach some of these courses.
It's just the appropriateness
between the junior division,
the senior division courses when it comes to
transfer that that's
the responsibility of another institution.
We want to make sure it's not a personal thing based on
people's credentials or based on people's expertise.
At the same time, it's just this is
how the system has to work.
We want to support our faculty
with that awareness obviously,
and recognize the fact that this does
not mean anything against them.
This is just where the appropriate course
needs to be delivered for
various reasons and this is what's best for our student.
All right. I believe we have
the resolution moved and seconded.
Any further discussion? Hearing none.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Okay. Great. Moving on to reports then.
Mr. President.
Just nice to be able to engage in a discussion.
Can you hold on one second. I want to vote
no against the resolution thing.
I'm sorry. Okay.
No. I didn't have the mute off.
I'm sorry. I just couldn't get to it.
Okay. [LAUGHTER]
Go ahead. I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt you, Brian.
All right. It's nice to be able
to have discussion about academic programming
and transfer and courses and
not the typical budget finance enrollment.
So thanks for indulging me even extra on
the topic because it's
nice to get our day started that way.
Laura-lee, I appreciate your
sentiments at the beginning of
the meeting and certainly want to
wish you best and I've always appreciated
your commitment to the institution
and support of everyone and our students.
So certainly on behalf of myself and others,
we want to wish you best and express our gratitude.
We actually have a couple of retirees this month and
certainly my sentiments to go to each of them as
well and all of our retirees over the last year.
So we're going to be looking to try to
include in a celebration
with other accolades of employee and staff recognition.
At a future event,
we keep hoping that it's
going to be able to be in-person.
At some point we may just have to go to
a virtual celebration because
time is just moving and moving.
We know that's foreign to you as
trustees and we had the administration
want to continue to look at it as well.
Whenever did last year's and this year's and full swing.
So we really need to do that to celebrate
our talented and committed faculty
and staff. Laura-lee, thank you.
Over the last month or so, certainly,
we continue to be focused on advocacy at
the state level and gathering information.
It's an interesting year when it comes to advocacy
because certainly while we're
continuing to monitor the the action or
conversation or rhetoric at
the federal level related
to additional COVID relief and investments.
We certainly continue to
monitor the conversation in New York,
while the state budget
potentially is just over a month away from approval.
That will be an important piece for us and
our own fiscal planning and
so will certainly be looking when Lyndon next week.
The governor's initial executive budget row out,
I think was a great start
for community colleges we talked about last month.
Restoration of aid for a year ago still
represents significant cuts and
the overall state allotment,
because the way that we're funded on
a per FTE enrollment model and
not flat institutional designated a State Aid Funds.
However, in this world,
anything close to not having
a significant cut is
better than perhaps we could have anticipated.
Lot can happen between now and then, of course,
and we want to make sure that we just have our voice as
part of the conversation of what our value will be in.
For a trustee is if there's
additional information and letters we can help support
and draft in the coming weeks we
will and similar to what we've
done in years and years past.
The Coronary Center continues to be near completion,
hopefully within the next month or so
it will be and we'll be
able to be able to talk about
the next steps for that particular program.
Our AMI project in Fulton
is bid ready documents will be going out
shortly to be able to go out and
collect bids for the construction for the AMI in Fulton.
It's an exciting thing for us and we're hopeful and
the next couple of months
we'll be able to have bid openings,
review them, and make determinations of timeline for
constructions and moving forward
in that particular project,
which I know the employers and
our partners are very excited about.
We're continuing to refine
the project for
the Workforce Development Center and looking
to have final plans and
budget and examination for
that in the coming weeks as well,
and be able to identify
the resources necessary to move forward on
that particular project and
hopefully as early as March we'll have
an update on that initiative and starting
to update some timelines
as we're starting to look further ahead.
Which is nice feeling for us as an institution obviously.
Really at this point we're primarily
focused on budget development and looking
for next year and trying
to look at all of our assumptions as we build
them and then what
our expense targets will
have to be based on our revenues.
From a very simplistic view,
based on their enrollment projections and
based on the realities of state aid, what it will be,
and based on the realities
of what we believe the chargeback to be,
those will be our revenues and
whatever ex cuts we need to make to our expenses to have
a balanced budget for next year we will
do and whatever impacts are necessary to
be made across the institution and decisions
to make those impacts to be made,
we will be prepared to do so to continue to put
our institution and
a viable and long-term financially sustained way.
This model hasn't changed in the last five years,
they will not change.
Probably between now and April,
we will have a better picture of what that looks like.
Enrollment is in a decline, Jonathan mentioned it.
Enrollment is down this year.
We didn't hit our budgeted target.
Applications are down for the fall everywhere
and we're going to have to budget down
at enrollment, again significantly.
For us as an institution,
if there's any confidence of the board,
is we've been able to
manage this institution through loss of
enrollment and reducing expenses
and reducing our overall budgets.
At the same time,
making and strategic investments to
help our position and mitigate
the realities of the demographics.
We'll continue to be focused on that.
But in the next 60 days,
we're going to have short and long-term plans
and we're going to also have to make
some decisions and communicate
those decisions that are difficult at the same time,
given the realities of our world,
we have no choice and so we'll
be focused on that as we go ahead.
I think the other priorities the institution
that we're focused on at this time,
we've talked about it with the trustees.
I've talked about it in
the past with the college community,
is that we are crafting
what I would say is the sentiments of
five-years of conversations and meetings and analysis of
what the next three-year strategy and strategic plan can
be and trying to come up with
a representative plan that's going to be drafted
centrally and then engage to globally
for feedback with an idea that by summer
or fall we will be unveiling and
began implementation of the colleges next strategic plan.
We're looking forward to having this draft
and what our process will be
to engage various stake holders.
There will be plenty of opportunity
for people to be involved in
the process but given
the world that's changing so rapidly,
giving that our future is
becoming their present quicker than we thought.
This is the right time to take a more accelerated,
yet thoughtful approach to
what the strategic plan process
can be and this isn't any different than
what the conversation was prior to the global pandemic.
But we're coming back to it and basically we were at
this place last year in January and
February and then when the world had changed,
it's all been put on pause and we're not picking up
the opportunity to continue it forward.
We're looking forward to getting feedback,
making the adjustments as necessary,
and then ultimately be able to
provide clarity to the institution that
it's time to look ahead while
we're managing the day-to-day complications.
Looking ahead will look like where our priorities lie.
We'll make it clear, and we'll make it collaborative.
At the same time, this plan needs to be
one that's measured with results and accountability.
We're looking forward to
leveraging this in a more intentional way that
perhaps we have in
our most recent planning process and
looking forward to where this will go.
Wait for that in the next couple of months
and this message is not only to you all as trustees,
but to those other leaders that are here today,
and it's a major
priority of the institution at this point.
It's time to look ahead while we're managing the
day-to-day as intensely as we happen.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
[NOISE]
All right. Thank you.
I think Barry ends.
I'm muted. Sorry. So moving on
to academic affairs, DR. Cantor?
Yes. Thank you.
I will simply spotlight one of
the items from the written report and that is that I
want to give a tip of the hat and
the high praise as well as appreciation
to our division chairs and
our faculty who had been working tirelessly.
It's turned from a sprint into a marathon and more.
[NOISE] For them to try to get
the master schedule of course or
offerings right for these highly uncertain times.
We heard the word uncertainty came
up several times from our, auditors.
If we move beyond the financial world, of course,
the academic world in the financial world are closely
related and interdependent for us.
But on the academic side,
trying to predict and bring to
life the right courses at the right times,
in the right formats in this changing world
affected by the pandemic is a huge challenge.
Requires [NOISE] crystal balls much
adjusting and flexibility to pivot at any moment,
as we tried to guess what students are going to be
interested in and what they're going to be able
to given the changing restrictions of the pandemic.
Then there's also, as I don't like to use the phrase,
"students will vote with their feet."
While pandemic restrictions might
change and we hope will ease up in the future.
We can put out the courses that we
can now put out and we couldn't before.
But some students, even though they can attend in person,
we know are going to continue to choose not
to attend in person and I'm
pleased to say that we've made great strides
in expanding the alternatives that we have.
It's not just online or in the classroom.
As you know, there are
a dozen or more different variations of that and
thanks to the rest of the college for supporting
us as we purchased new technologies,
trained faculty, etc., to
prepare that and that we continue to
play that guessing game I think we've
done as well as any institution
as I compare notes with
Provost across [inaudible] and beyond,
we're all playing the same guessing game
and I think you guys doing fairly well and again,
thanks to division chairs and faculty
for incredible flexibility as we do this.
Dr. Cantor, I would like to give a particular shout-out
to Professor Stevick's initiation
of the poetry reading group.
As we all know, COVID is a very stressful time.
It's been a stressful year and one of the things we
know about human beings is that in times of stress,
they, returned to poetry.
They resort to poetry and it's very important.
I was just so impressed that on top of
all the extra work that everybody's
doing that he started this program.
So thumps up to Doctor Stevick.
Well, thank you.
On behalf of Greg Sevick and everyone else.
We appreciate that.
I just want to say so many of
our faculty are doing so many things in
big and small ways to continue to connect
and support students in whatever ways possible.
Poetry is an excellent example.
There are dozens more ways that our faculty are doing it.
Remember, we know that many, of our students,
even before the pandemic,
had so many life challenges, financial challenges,
health challenges, family, etc.,
that our faculty really had grown incredibly adept
at trying to support students
academically and then every other way.
The pandemic is just showing how well they do that.
Thank you.
Dr. Cantor following on [inaudible] ,
requests for information about transferability.
In your report, you mentioned you're
finalizing the articulation agreement
with St. John Fisher.
We know that you've got
seamless transferability to state institutions,
but certainly to private institutions
can be a little [LAUGHTER] less seamless.
It'll be interesting to know where
we have articulation agreements
with other institutions when
you report on it transferability.
So I would add that to
a request for information for the future.
Also on the Sarah agreement.
I just would be curious to know
how many out-of-state students
are taking advantage of our online,
but I don't need that today.
It be just information for the future. Thank you.
We will get that information for you.
Great. Any other questions for Dr. Cantor? Hearing none.
We'll move on to the acting CFO treasurer report.
I know Miss [inaudible] is not here,
but I believe we still have [inaudible]
and [inaudible] , on the line.
Anything that you folks want to report or comment on?
No, not particularly.
Just we're very happy to audio went
well and we did have some issues.
Just some post entries
that will definitely be working on to
clean it up and we'll have a perfect on it next year.
But other than that, I know,
I don't know Jackie, if you have anything else to say?
No, I agree with you [NOISE]
and we make it better for the following year so.
Okay, any questions for the finance team?
The only additional thing I think
that for those that were not in finance and audit,
although I think many people attended because
the audit report is
that one of the pressures right
now is that we are certainly
looking at the expenditure opportunities
with the second round of Cares Act funding,
[NOISE] as well as
the timeliness and which things need to expand,
how those funds can help us shorter and medium term.
By short and medium term, I mean next six months,
the next 12 months
when it comes to budgeting and finance.
Looking at the guidance both
from a federal and the state level,
and then implementing that as part
of our Budget considerations,
I think is where a lot of our focus is,
as well as projecting year-end given
the normal reality is which we will continue to go over.
Then how we can apply this to
our current needs and what we can do in
the next six months to maximize the resources we
have and the timeliness in which they have to be spent,
and also to ensure
compliance with how they have to be spent.
[NOISE] There's a great deal of
evaluation and conversation that has to go in this lane
because we need to make decisions swiftly,
yet we need to ensure that were in full compliance.
Over the next 30 to 45 days,
lots of decisions will be
made and we'll be
able to make sure we're in full compliance there.
So if Marie here,
other than the sentiments of the staff,
that's what we would add be our focus.
All right. Any other comments, questions [NOISE]?
Moving on to student affairs,
enrollment management and IT, Mr. Rosenthal.
Morning everyone. I hope you can hear
me. Can you hear me?
Yes.
A little soft.
A little soft. Well, I got a new computer and apparently,
I'm having some microphone issues.
I will have to talk to the person that oversees IT
and see what we can do about that, which of course is me.
[LAUGHTER] You have my report and as always,
I'm happy to answer questions.
I do want to make a couple of comments.
First, building on what Provost Cantor
said about Cayuga being
well-positioned to deal with
the challenges that we are all confronting these days.
I agree with him and fortify and amplify those thoughts.
I think the work that the faculty have done in creating,
obviously, outstanding academic programs,
but also the delivery modes and the vehicles
by which those courses and programs can be accessed,
particularly in the online environment,
really positioned us very well
compared to our peers to be able to
deliver [NOISE] those courses and
programs [NOISE] to folks.
In fact, our current social media campaign [NOISE]
that's centered on the idea of take
a Cayuga course anywhere, anytime,
I think is resonating with people,
and I know someone asked a question
about students out-of-state who were taking courses,
and I think there is data to suggest that we do provide
our courses to students who don't necessarily live in
our region or even in our state.
I think nursing is one of those programs where people
recognize all across the country
the value of what we're offering,
the science, the lab
courses that are offered online as well.
It's been a challenging semester and a challenging year,
and I also want to reflect the comments that
the auditors made about it
being a difficult enrollment period.
But, [NOISE] again, I think that
Cayuga is well-positioned to ride
the turmoil and be
successful and continue to provide a really good product.
Under the leadership of Bruce Blodgett,
the Director of Admissions,
we're doing something a little different this year.
We're offering five virtual open houses.
We typically offer just one on each campus,
but obviously because we're restricting access
and the pandemic has
changed people's patterns of behavior.
We're going to offer five separate open houses,
one devoted to each academic school,
and I want to thank all of the faculty who have
volunteered to offer their wisdom and
their insights and information to
prospective students who want
to participate in those sessions.
I also want to recognize
Adam Williams and Bruce Walter who do all of
the background work to make it
possible for us to offer virtual open houses.
There's a lot of work that goes
into it and I don't think people really
realize how much goes
into creating those kinds of programs and services.
Lastly, I just want to say that tomorrow three of
our absolute finest employees
are going to be retiring from the college.
As many of you know, Laura-lee is the voice
of Cayuga and some might say the heart as well.
Suarez, who you could say is
the voice of the admissions office and
has worked at the college for many years,
and Theresa Rogalski,
who also worked for the college for many,
many years in the financial aid office,
which is now a student financial services.
These are individuals that I would say are irreplaceable,
and they are what makes Cayuga a very special place,
and I personally want to congratulate
them and tell them that I'm going to miss them,
and Cayuga is going to miss them as well.
But I also wish them well and success
and happiness on the next chapter of their life.
So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.
Jeff, just one. When you're doing virtual open houses,
that's great, and I see you're dividing them
up by the various program areas.
Do you guys do virtual tours that
showcase those specific areas as well?
I'm thinking specifically SOMA
and for the health sciences and such,
how to show them the various facilities.
It's just a failing on my part, I haven't looked.
I don't know if, I mean, virtual tours
are included, but certainly,
faculty who were participating in those schools,
I think are able to provide
an idea or a representation
of what's available for students.
We also on our website
have a virtual tour where a student can walk
through our halls virtually that
was created a number of years
ago in partnership with Google.
I think that's also available and part of
[NOISE] what students can
experience during the virtual open house.
I just didn't know if you have specific
for the program areas
but if it's available, that's fine.
It's not the same as being in person for sure.
No, it never is. I can tell
you the admission staff are undeterred
in their efforts to help students get
familiar with Cayuga and our courses and programs.
Again, the faculty have been
wonderful about making themselves available
and answering questions that
students might have about their programs.
Greta. Any other questions for Mr. Rosenthal?
Moving on to human resources
and public safety, Mr. Corcoran.
[NOISE] Is he still on the line?
You're muted, Tom.
Yeah.
Good morning, everyone. Sorry about that.
I certainly want to echo the sediments
regarding the retirements of Suarez,
Theresa Rogalski, and Laura-lee Lardear,
certainly all will be missed.
I want to particularly call out Theresa Rogalski because
she has been a tireless partner, if you will,
with the ESP union,
and I certainly appreciate her leadership with
ESP and my ability to work and learn from Theresa,
as I joined the college.
She was one of the first people that I met when
I walked down to this campus five years ago in December.
Congratulations to our retirees.
As has been said, they will be missed.
I also want to point out that we're hosting
our [NOISE] Program and
Professional Development day on March 10th.
You will all receive an invitation to
participate in the program for the day, it is virtual.
The cool thing about
this year's events is because it is virtual,
we are able to open it up to additional participants,
namely substitutes, on-call employees,
adjuncts, anyone can participate in these sessions,
and so you will see
an email coming out with information about the day.
I'm working with a small but select committee
in putting the final touches on the [NOISE] agenda.
We have a couple of keynote speakers that
we're going to record in the event anybody who
wants to listen to them later.
Our morning keynote, in particular,
is Dr. Jodi Merriday,
who is going to speak to us
in the space of racial diversity,
equity, and inclusion,
and she's known to some individuals on this campus.
You'll recall in past years on
Program Professional Development day,
[NOISE] we have done diversity inclusion,
equity is related to poverty, income, equity, gender,
and so this year we're focusing
on racial diversity as part of our keynote.
So with that, I'll put it up for
any questions that anyone might have regarding
my reports or anything I've spoke of this morning.
Tom, under the public safety report,
is it still moving ahead?
I know there were some questions about
whether Spartan hall could
serve as a COVID vaccine site.
I would defer to Brian.
Brian, is there any update on
[NOISE] the college as a site?
We're ready to go, I believe,
but I'll let Brian speak to that.
The college has communicated
with the county multiple times that
our willingness to be a site as and if needed.
Our site have been evaluated.
Dr. Kenny and others,
we've talked with them, we've showed them spaces.
We've given out, I think,
open opportunities for [NOISE] us to be used.
At this point, they haven't determined that we have
been needed to be the particular site,
but perhaps with the new vaccine being approved and the
ramping up that they're discussing that's going
to hopefully come to fruition,
that we certainly stand
ready to accommodate in the best way we can.
Our priority is to not disrupt
campus and college operations, however,
we feel like there are opportunities for us to be
involved in ways that we can as a site.
Simply, if the call
came for our Fulton campus and spaces,
we would work with officials there.
We've done testing, we've done
other things for various groups,
but as far as we're concerned at
this point, we're available,
they know we're available
and if they need us, we'll work with them.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Any other questions for Mr. Corcoran?
All right. Hearing none.
I see we do not have
a formal report from our student trustee,
but I wonder if Ms. Bates
had any other comments she wanted to make?
[NOISE]
I did submit one last night.
Oh, okay. Sorry.
Yeah.
Sorry for short notice.
But I have everything on the report.
It's just stuff that we've been doing with SEO
for this new spring semester.
I've been sending out flyers to
the students for the history months.
So I created a flyer for Black History Month,
for figures of upstate New York,
and then I plan on sending one out for March,
for Women's History Month.
Then we did have our club activities fair
on the 10th of February.
We established what clubs were still active in
the distance learning environment,
and then we did start the diversity series,
which is open to everybody,
and we were partnered with SUNY more or so.
If students attend all of the diversity series programs,
they'll receive a diversity certificate.
It's with Dr. Jodi Merriday.
We've already had three events,
and then we do have three more planned.
Then today actually we have
an event for indigenous roots.
We have another presentation today.
Then also I plan on sending out
another flyer to increase engagement with the cast,
because tutoring numbers are down obviously,
because people were used to dropping in into the cast.
Then also in the future,
we plan on having in April,
a wellness week to increase
student morale. That's all I got.
Sound like you've been active and busy.
That's great. Thank you.
Any questions for Trustee Bates?
All right. Hearing none, we'll move on to the foundation.
Mr. Cosentino.
Good morning.
Thank you for having us.
Just a couple of quick updates.
We managed to supplement the audit report as well.
We also received an unqualified opinion with Bonadio.
I want to share just two numbers with you.
We are up about 18 percent
year over a year from 1,819 to 1,920,
in the number of scholarships we've given out this year,
and that is a continual trend
up and we hope to continue that.
We also want to note that our donations,
if you separate out in-kind donations from our audit,
were up about 47 percent.
Should say that that is largely due in part to
the work that Dr. Camardo and others are
doing with the AMI in Fulton,
where we have some funds that have been
developed up there by the local business community.
So we're very, very happy about those audit numbers.
I do want to just note a couple of
other items and changes at the foundation.
First of all, this is the final week
for nominations for alumni of the year.
As you know, we awarded two last year.
We unfortunately, we're not able to
have our normal event.
We are opening it up again this year for nominations.
They are due by next Monday.
The foundation has, through the Alumni Association,
the Alumni Association has a committee
that will review those and we encourage us
to recognize great grads of Cayuga or ACC over the years.
So we have some nominations in,
and we've been talking to Dr.
Durant about when we can do recognition for that.
We are thinking it's more in the October,
November region, once we
get more people vaccinated
in this country, in this region.
We're hoping to do that,
and that is work that the Alumni Association is doing.
We also should be
hitting your mailboxes, I hope this week,
maybe some of you have already received
a special edition of the Spartan,
that is a supplement to what
we did with the annual report in December.
Ginny Kent did some wonderful biographies
of people we've lost unfortunately over the last year.
Unfortunately, that list was added on
this week with Jack McLain,
who many of you knew was the president of the foundation
for many years as well as
a member of our board of directors.
He passed away on Saturday night.
We will recognize him,
and what I think president Durant is hoping is
a June or July Spartan addition,
as well as class notes at that point.
Before talking about the foundation,
we are obviously losing
three great people who worked with
the foundation over the years,
and we appreciate all their work.
If I could signal her out because she's
on the phone and I can see her face on my screen.
[inaudible] has been just
terrific to the foundation and the Alumni Association.
She has just been great for us,
and we really appreciate everything you've done for us.
As well as the other staff that are retiring,
but I see you on the screen
and I would want to point that out,
and back to you from all of us.
There had been some changes at the foundation.
We have a new president, John [inaudible] has just been
elected as the president of the foundation.
Kelley Gridley by the law change
has taken up the new position
of immediate past president.
A name you may
remember from the past Dr. Dennis Golladay,
is our new vice president,
and we're delighted that John Klink has agreed to
another term as the trustee representative on our board.
That in summary is I think
what I wanted to touch base with you all on,
and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Anything for Mr. Cosentino?
No? Hearing none, we move on.
Doesn't look like we have any old business
or new business.
We do have a letter of
thanks under the communication header from Pam Heleen,
for acknowledging some of the
thank you gifts that
we sent her for her many years of service.
Thank you. In the information packet,
you can read through it.
I just would encourage people to take a look at
the trustee attendance list for when
your assignment is coming up.
I attended this week for a past trustee,
and Dr. Durant actually
fielded a number of questions this time.
It was one of the more engaged
[LAUGHTER] legislature meetings
in terms of questions
about programming and various things,
and he fielded it up very well.
So thank you. He represented us well.
With no further business,
we do have need of
an executive session for the purposes
of personnel and contract negotiations.
I would ask for a motion to enter executive session.
Motion made to enter executive session.
Second. [OVERLAPPING].
No business afterwards? Is that correct?
No.
Okay. All right. So I thank you all
for coming and we'll see you all soon,
and the board will stay on.
We need a vote to go on executive session. Marion.
We just we just did that, John.
You had a motion and a second.
Oh, you are right. Okay. All those in favor? Thank you.
All right.
Good bye. Appreciate it.
Brian, can you please stay on.
Kathy left us? That's fine.
Allow me to stay Brian.
Yeah. Okay. We good? Stopped recording?
Yes. No it hasn't stopped yet.