Board Member Luncheon

11:30 am at the Pruitt Community Room

Western Texas College

Scurry County Junior College District

Snyder, Texas

Board Meeting, 12:30 P.M.

Monday, September 12, 2022

Palmer Hall Boardroom

Agenda

I.     Call to Order

  1. Mr. Riggan will give the invocation

  2. Recognize guests

  3. Introduce the volleyball, cross country, and track teams

II.    Public comments: 3-minute limit per person on agenda and non-agenda items

III.   Routine Matters

  1. Recommended Action

    1. Consideration of approval of August 8, 2022, August 15, 2022, and August 29, 2022 board minutes

    2. Consideration of approval of August 2022 financial information

  2. New Business

    1. Consideration of approval of revised 2022-2023 Resolution (Ms. Claxton)

    2. Consideration of approval of small class report (Mr. Canada)

IV.    Information and Discussion

  1. Enrollment report (Mr. Canada)

  2. Summary of Title V Projects (Mr. Canada)

  3. Update on Texas Community College Commission on Finance (Dr. Beebe)

 

EXECUTIVE SESSION: The Board will go into executive session. The executive session will be held under the provisions of Texas Government Code, Chapter 551, including but not limited to, Section 551.071, Section 551.072, Section 551.074, Section 551.076, Section 551.082(a), and Section 551.083.

  1. Consultation with Legal Counsel

  2. Deliberation regarding appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of personnel

At the conclusion of the executive session, the Board will announce whether any action needs to be taken as a result of the executive session.

V.     Date of next Board meeting - October 10, 2022

Minutes

The Board of Trustees of Western Texas College met in a regular board meeting at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, August 8, 2022, in the boardroom.

Present:           Mr. Eddie Peterson, Mr. Jason West, Mr. Drew Bullard, Dr. Jay Kidd, , Mr. Tim Riggan, Ms. Amy Hargrove, Mr. Mike McWilliams

Absent:           

Staff Present:  Dr. Barbara Beebe, Ms. Patricia Claxton, Ms. Melanie Schwertner, Ms. Tammy Davis, Ms. Stephanie Ducheneaux, Mr. Ralph Ramon, Mr. Shawn Fonville, Mr. Britt Canada

Others Present: Chad Goebel, Snyder News

Mr. Peterson, board president, called the meeting to order and Dr. Jay Kidd gave the invocation.

No one from the public made any comments.

Motion by Mr. Riggan, seconded by Ms. Hargrove to approve the board minutes of July 11, 2022. Motion carried unanimously.

Motion by Dr. Kidd, seconded by Mr. McWilliams to approve the financial information for July 2022.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Motion by Mr. West, seconded by Mr. Bullard to approve the employment contract for Ms. Courtney Garcia, Medical Assistant Program Instructor.  Motion carried unanimously.  Mr. Fonville was asked about the medical assistant program.  Doctor’s offices are using medical assistants and getting rid of nurses.  They can take vitals, take care of records and billing.  Students can get a one-year certificate or a 2-year associates degree.  If the doctor approves, the medical assistant can give shots.  SISD buses students to campus for our program.  Classes are not as in depth as nursing classes but close.  We currently have 20 students in the program.  Depending on the area will determine what salary they can make.  In Lubbock, they can make around $30,000 but a little less here. 

Motion by Dr. Kidd, seconded  by Mr. Riggan to approve the employment contract for Ms. Mary Elizabeth Purcell, History Instructor.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Motion by Mr. West, seconded by Dr. Kidd to propose .2650 as our tax rate and to set Monday, August 15th at 12:30 pm for our public hearing on the tax rate.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Motion by Mr. Bullard, seconded by Mr. Riggan to approve the summer small class report.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Mr. Britt Canada presented the summer enrollment report.  Our funding year started on March 1st.  The legislature wants to know our contact hours for funding.  Good enrollment is good for us.  Current contact hours are 179,000 compared to 126,000 last year.  Headcount is 1576 compared to 1098 last year.  Duplicated headcount is 1956 compared to 1398 last year.  We are nearly back to our enrollment pre-COVID.  Continuing education is recorded in quarters.  This quarter was from March to May.  Enrollment was 420 compared to 131 last year. Contact hours were 16,961 compared to 15,205 last year.  The Opportunity Waiver served 171 students compared to 150 last year.  We waived $256,542 compared to $208,179 last year.  Since inception in 2007, we have waived $2,618,890.  Acadeum students are students we teach that are going to other schools.  This brings in significant income to the school.  For the fall, we had 1129 compared to 1197 last year. 

How do we build enrollment back up?  We are changing our learning system.  We now have Bright Space as our LMS.  Faculty are developing additional online classes.  During COVID, schools had to teach online, and now that COVID  has slowed down, they don’t want to teach online.  This helps with our numbers increasing.  In 2017-2018 we had a lot more inmates.  The prison’s emphasis is security and not instruction.  They are very short staffed.  We have to request lay ins, and they are only eligible within three years of parole.  They wait to lay them in until the third year, and the inmate is so close to parole they don’t want to take the classes.  They have pushed up parole for many inmates because they are so short staffed. 

Dr. Beebe presented the personnel update.  We have quite a lot of people coming and going.  Our new employees include Courtney Garcia, Medical Assistant Program Instructor; Mary Elizabeth Purcell, History Instructor; Stephanie York, English Instructor; Tabitha Zamora, Admissions Clerk; Cynthia Cervantes, Head Women’s Soccer Coach; Julieta Garcia, Assistant Women’s Soccer Coach; Emily Martinez, Assistant Softball Coach; Robert Walton, Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach; Meagan Rosson, Admin Assistant for HR, Foundation, CTE; Randal Martin, Golf and Grounds; Melissa Perryman, Student Success Coordinator; Breanna Brossman, Upward Bound Academic Coordinator.  Everyone has helped while Dr. Beebe is doing HR.  Fingers crossed we find an HR person soon. 

The public hearing for our tax rate will be held on Monday, August 15, 2022.  We will cancel the meeting for Monday, August 22, 2022.  The vote on the tax rate and adopt the budgets will be held on Monday, August 29, 2022.  Lunch will not be served at either meeting.  We may have a couple of people show up. 

An August calendar was presented to board members.

Questions from board members

  • What is the status of fixing the potholes?  Eli Torres came out and looked at our roads.  It will be four different projects.  We are a member of a coop with an asphalt/paving company, so we do not need an RFP. Mitch is talking to the company.  We do not have a timeframe yet, but we are probably looking at the spring.  We have some spots that need to be patched, and a work order has been submitted. 

  • How is the Farm and Ranch program doing?  It has 11 students, and for a new program that is pretty good.  Dr. Church is doing a great job.  He really knows his stuff.  Between Mr. Waller and Dr. Church, everyone knows one of them. 

  • Tammy gave an athletic update.  They are working on getting everyone here and into classes.  Soccer, volleyball, and cross country are practicing.  Cross country has a meet soon, and volleyball has a huge 8 team tournament on campus and at the Coliseum.  Baseball picked up one after tryouts, and basketball picked up three.  We had an injury, and she won’t be able to compete this semester.  We are not sure when she will be released to come back to campus. 

There were no suggested agenda items.  

There was no other information. 

The scheduled executive session was cancelled.

Mr. Riggan thanked everyone for stepping up when we are short staffed.  He does appreciate it and it hasn’t gone unseen. 

Motion by Mr. Bullard, seconded by Mr. West to adjourn the meeting.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Date of next board meeting August 15,  2022

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The Board of Trustees of Western Texas College met in a special board meeting at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, August 15, 2022, in the boardroom.

Present:           Mr. Eddie Peterson, Mr. Jason West, Mr. Drew Bullard, Mr. Tim Riggan, Ms. Amy Hargrove

Absent:            Mr. Mike McWilliams, Dr. Jay Kidd

Staff Present:  Dr. Barbara Beebe, Ms. Patricia Claxton, Ms. Melanie Schwertner, Ms. Tammy Davis, Ms. Stephanie Ducheneaux, Mr. Ralph Ramon, Mr. Shawn Fonville, Mr. Britt Canada

Others Present:  

Mr. Peterson, board president, called the meeting to order and gave the invocation.

No one from the public came for the public hearing on our tax rate.

Motion by Mr. West, seconded by Ms. Hargrove to set Monday, August 29th at 12:30 pm to vote on our tax rate.  Motion carried unanimously. 

The scheduled executive session was cancelled.

Motion by Mr. West, seconded by Mr. Bullard to adjourn the meeting.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Date of next board meeting August 29,  2022

*******

The Board of Trustees of Western Texas College met in a special board meeting at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, August 29, 2022, in the boardroom.

Present:           Mr. Eddie Peterson, Mr. Jason West, Mr. Drew Bullard, Dr. Jay Kidd, , Mr. Tim Riggan, Ms. Amy Hargrove

Absent:            Mr. Mike McWilliams

Staff Present:  Dr. Barbara Beebe, Ms. Patricia Claxton, Ms. Melanie Schwertner, Mr. Ralph Ramon, Mr. Shawn Fonville, Mr. Britt Canada, Emily Powell

Others Present:

Mr. Peterson, board president, called the meeting to order and Ms. Amy Hargrove gave the invocation.

No one from the public made any comments.

Motion by Dr. Kidd, seconded by Ms. Hargrove to adopt the 2022-2023 budget.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Motion by Mr. West, seconded by Dr. Kidd to move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of .2650 which is effectively a 5.66% increase over the no-new-revenue tax rate.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Motion by Mr. Riggan, seconded by Mr. West to give the college the authority to purchase a 15-passenger van up to $60,000.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Motion by Dr. Kidd, seconded by Mr. Riggan to approve the tax abatement application for Cross Trails Energy Storage Project, LLC.  Motion carried unanimously. 

No one from the public was in attendance for the public hearing on the proposed tax abatement agreement with Cross Trails Energy Storage Project, LLC. 

Motion by Dr. Kidd, seconded by Mr. Bullard to approve the tax abatement agreement with Cross Trails Energy Storage Project, LLC.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Ms. Claxton discussed asphalt and paving.  There is an asphalt company in a coop from Abilene. They can complete the project for under $200,000.  They should start soon.  They need to do this in the warmer weather.  Some areas will be repaved.  They have divided it up into four quadrants. We need to figure out how to reroute traffic.  Hopefully it will be completed by October.    

The scheduled executive session was cancelled.

Motion by Mr. West, seconded by Mr. Bullard to adjourn the meeting.  Motion carried unanimously. 

Date of next board meeting September 12,  2022

Financials

Check Register

New Business

Information & Discussion

Enrollment Report

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Mr. Canada will hand out the Title V project report on Monday.

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Dr. Beebe will discuss the Texas Community College Commission on Finance on Monday.