(0:02 - 0:25) Okay, I hereby call this public hearing to order and we are open for public comment on the 23-24 budget. Mr. Molman, do we have anyone signed up to speak? Indeed we do, Mr. Chairman. First name on the list is Lyra Capson. (0:31 - 1:54) Good evening. I'm not going to need three minutes, I'm going to be short and sweet. I know one of the main concerns that we talked about being brought today had to do with deferred maintenance and I was thinking about how to present this. Y'all are aware of what we need to have done around campus, I know that you are, so I decided to take an approach where I looked at our mission statement and our values, our core values that we've adopted as a college that y'all approved and y'all encouraged and want us to have and I know y'all have the cards there and on this card we have safety. Maintenance has a lot to do with safety. When it's not safe for students and for us as faculty, staff, administration to go into certain areas of our campus, that's one of our core values. We need to think about that. Safety affects well-being. Our well-being can affect the growth, it can affect our efficiency as members of Lee College staff and everything, all of us that work here and our responsibility to maintain a safe, comfortable environment for ourselves and our students I think is a very, very important and of utmost importance to us here at Lee College and we put it on our website too, it's not just cards that we're carrying around, cards that you have that we talk about at our convocations and different workshops and that kind of stuff. (1:55 - 2:30) It's something that we say at Lee College, we put it on our website, one of the first things people can say when it talks about us and who we are on our about tab. We go to our mission, our mission is safety. Maintenance is safety. When students have to go to find to three different buildings to find a restroom that's safe to use, that's not messed up or things like that or they can't walk down a hall without cracks that they trip over or through sidewalks to me, that is safety. Safety is our first core value and that's just what I wanted to present for talking about deferred maintenance today. Thank you. (2:35 - 4:26) Next is William Walker. Hello. Hello Board of Regents. My name is William Walker and I have the opportunity as a local taxpaying resident of Baytown and as a faculty who is an executive officer of the Faculty Assembly to speak to you today. I would like to begin by complimenting you on the work you have done in regards to the content of Lee College. The content I'm referring to is the quality of the instructors we are utilizing which in turn relates to better student outcomes and success. I believe this is one of the factors that is leading to higher enrollment numbers. I work in the TV1 building which was built in 1967. I believe this building can use some TLC. So I'm in favor of money from the 9.5 million towards the deferred maintenance. These buildings are not biological. What do I mean by that? I mean that they cannot heal themselves. They need your help. And speaking of structure, I believe that insurance for storm damage is essential to the disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Our faculty has been here many years and I'll bet those of you who attended Lee College could show us the actual desk in the actual classroom is still there today. This is why I support money for maintenance and repairs so that in closing I appreciate all the work that you have done for Lee College making it a success. And of course I believe the 60% raise would encourage employee retention. Thank you. (4:32 - 5:39) Wally Collins. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, my name is Wally Collins. I've been a Baytown citizen for over 65 years. I'm a graduate of Lee College. I'm a retired from Exxon Mobil. I started teaching adjunct here in 1984 and I joined full time after retirement in 2015. So I've been around a while. During this time Lee College has been a symbol of the city of Baytown and has launched a measurable number of careers. I'm here tonight to express my concern about the upcoming budget. There's a difference in opinion on how to spend the $9.5 million awarded to the state for student performance. As I understand it, the $9.5 million is a result of the hard work of the students, faculty, and staff of Lee College. A significant number of professors we have here make less than the starting salary of our graduates. (5:41 - 6:34) Your employees deserve a competitive wage. We have earned it. The $9.5 million, as I understand it, is this year's money and not guaranteed for next. As a taxpayer, a rebate of 5% on a $100 valuation doesn't mean no good whatsoever. It doesn't do me any good. If I had a million dollar house, which I don't, Mark, $500 a year, that's it. The optics are terrible. Your family, staff, students have earned the $9.5 million. Let us have it. We need it. The taxpayers don't. Also, the college has a $400 million deferred maintenance budget. (6:35 - 7:35) Why? Deferred maintenance means we're not keeping up with our home. The board must support a structured maintenance recovery plan before we have a major issue. A major issue could be a named storm, which brings up insurance. If we don't have insurance, it puts the whole college in an unconscionable position. It's not good. If we have damage to one of our aged buildings, you're going to have to bring it back up to code, which means, among other things, total asbestos abatement, which we have an overabundance of it on campus. This is our home. If the board does not support the faculty, staff, and students in physical facilities, then what are we doing? What are you doing as a board? Thank you. Marissa Moreno. (7:42 - 13:46) Good evening, Board of Regents, President Villanueva, and members of the Lee College community. My name is Dr. Marissa Moreno. I'm a lifelong Baytonian and an employee of Lee College for 23 years this October. Tonight, I'm speaking to you as a taxpayer for close to 20 years. I've heard discussion over the last several months regarding the current tax rate and the need to provide relief to taxpayers. Please note that I respect every board member's stance on this concern. Lee College is a force for good in this community. We see record growth in enrollment and completion. Over the last three years, we experienced a surge in graduates contributing positively to this community. These positive outcomes come at a cost. As a taxpayer, I can unquestionably say that I'd rather see the monies raised by my tax dollars go towards funding Lee College and the small relief that reducing the tax rate would provide to me as your constituent. I am asking you, as your constituent, that you provide Lee College with the necessary resources to offer salaries that are competitive in the market. Lee College is a high-performing institution, and we need to ensure that we keep and attract the best of the best. I am asking you, as your constituent, that you use my tax dollars to work towards supporting an operating reserve. I do not want to see the college ever be in the position it was a few years back when we had to borrow money to remain solvent. I am asking you, as your constituent, that you use my tax dollars to work towards repairing our aging facilities and to protect our facilities with the necessary forms of insurance. I've worked and lived in this community long enough to know that many of our facilities are well past their prime. In closing, I'm grateful that Lee College provides our high school students opportunities to learn. I'm grateful that we provide education for non-traditional students wanting to start and or change their careers. I'm grateful that we support seniors who want to explore the world or stay healthy through a water aerobics class. There's a lot of them. These programming impacts are crucial in ensuring our community has unlimited resources for students who complete college courses while in high school, resources towards high-demand jobs, and opportunities for our citizens to live a fuller life with healthy course options. For these reasons, I'm fine with the current tax rate. I trust the recommendations from Dr. Villanueva and Annette Ferguson to our board in efforts to make the best financial decisions for the community I've been a part of my entire life and the college I've dedicated my entire professional career. Thank you. Sarah Tidwell. Good evening. My name is Sarah Tidwell. I serve as the Director of Advising. Before that, I was a counselor here for 17 years and an occasional adjunct. Long before that, I was a proudly college student and graduate. Today, I ask you to support our administration's proposed budget, specifically a 6% increase in an effort to alleviate salary compression and increase the salary structure for the upcoming academic year. This effort is essential to the retention of current employees as well as recruiting the absolute best talent to support our community in their educational goals. I have seen three academic advisors leave advising for different positions on this campus. One of those three remained non-instructional while the other two remained instructional. Since 2020, administration has been supportive of advising by encouraging other campus faculty and staff to assist during peak registration times. This spring, an instructional department, which happens to have two nine month faculty members that are formerly college academic advisors, was asked if they were interested in working in advising over summer. They declined. I was not surprised. They know the taxing work. While familiar, they know the cost-benefit ratio. This month, we lost an experienced academic advisor. She accepted an advisor position at another institution for better pay and regularly scheduled remote work. The vacancy has been posted for two weeks. We currently have less than 20 applicants. We usually have over 100. Today, I learned that we have lost one of our regular peak-time advising helpers to an academic advising position at the same institution. Our counselors and advisors have taken on duties beyond their job descriptions, including serving as Title IX investigators, serving on the CARES team, liaising with industry, working with students on extracurricular basis. We will continue to do these things because it is our occupation and our avocation, but we need your help to serve our community. On Monday, Fall 2023 begins. Unofficially, as of Wednesday at 317 p.m., we have 4,361 main campus, non-dual credit, non-Huntsville students enrolled. We serve each and every one of these students with eight advisors in one vacant position. This enrollment number gives us a student-to-advisor ratio of 485 students per one advisor. Best practices dictate student-advisor ratios be no more than 300 to 1. Large student-to-advisor ratios and turnover do not support an ideal student experience. Like you, we want what's best for our students, for our campus, and for this community. Were this a call to raise taxes to support this issue, I would agree that now would be an inopportune time to do so, but this need to utilize the resources we have now is not an increase in taxes but a responsible allocation of existing resources. What we ask of you is to heed the call of our administration and support this investment in Lee College's future. Thank you for your time. Ray Whitlow. Good evening, board members. First, I want to say thank you very much for serving as a board member. I know you care about this college as much as everybody in this room as well as in the community and Baytown itself. I want to speak about NameStorm Insurance. (13:46 - 14:22) I've grown up in Baytown. I went to Highlands Junior High. I went to Baytown Sterling. I moved here from the north, and so whenever I got here and they talked about hurricanes, I didn't really think much of it until I was living off of Baker Road, Sterling Green Apartments. They were called Quail Hollow at the time. I don't remember the storm, but I remember my mom and I were upstairs, and I also remember them talking about the freight train whenever a tornado was near. I also remember them talking about the pressure, and I felt it. My mom and I felt it. We ran into the bedroom, and you could just hear this rumbling noise outside. (14:23 - 14:40) I was about 17 years old, maybe 15, 16, never been so scared in my entire life. Our sliding glass door just crashed in like some scene out of a horror movie. When it was all over with, I wondered what the damage was whenever I went outside, and it was utterly devastating. (14:40 - 15:18) My mom and I were fortunate to still have a roof. Most everybody in that apartment, roof fell off, and they had to, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the hurricane, scramble to some other person's apartment that would take them in just to keep them alive. Fortunately, I don't think that has happened here to this college yet. We've been very fortunate. I urge you to use some of this $9.5 million to invest in some type of insurance because we just don't want to hope that that damage that I felt, that many of you, many of these people in this room have felt, happens to this school. Thank you. (15:23 - 17:32) Byron Scharnbeck. Madam President, Mr. Chairman, Regents, my name is Byron Scharnbeck. If my count's right, I think I may be the only one that's spoken so far that's not on your payroll. I'm here as a taxpayer, and I am an alumni of Lee College. I think Lee College is great, provides some of the best value for the money out there. I got my associate's degree here before I moved on to U of H and saved my dad a lot of money, and I got a great degree and a great education here. I'd love to tell you what I think about the budget, but from what I've seen, I guess it's still in the works and it's not actually posted online, so I can't tell you what I think about it. I'm sure we'll have that discussion later on. So I'm also here to represent not just myself, but we have a group that's called the Baytown Better Bond and Government Committee, and I represent several hundred taxpayers. We worked on things like government transparency, taxes, school bonds, things like that, and I would like to speak to you on behalf of, you know, your average taxpayer. And I guess I'd like to maybe persuade you of looking at things a little bit differently. I think intellectually we all understand where tax dollars come from. They come from the people at large, and although a lot of your budget is a mix of, you know, administration, fees, tuition, things like that, a good portion is through the taxes. And instead of thinking of this as one large pool of money to where we just want to spend it on things that we think we need and what we agree with, I'd like you to maybe think about it differently when you deliberate. Think about it this way. Every dollar that you spend is a dollar taken away from the person that earned it. And are you spending that dollar better than they could, especially in these times of high gases, high mortgage rates, inflation? Everything's eaten us alive. And I know Lee College has a very low portion of our overall tax rate. (17:32 - 17:57) Baytown is high. Goose Creek is high. But it still all adds up. You know, we do recognize that. And in fact, we are live streaming for our group tonight. So, you know, if you want to go back and watch that later on, you can. But when it comes to that, we're also going to be watching when you set the tax rate. And we are aware that any tax rate above the no new revenue rate is a tax increase. And that's one thing that we'll be considering. (17:57 - 18:10) Hopefully you can craft a budget that will keep you within the no new revenue tax rate so there's no tax increase. Thank you very much. Joe Giannakos. (18:21 - 18:54) Chairman Fontenot, Regents, President Villanueva, I've been here before. And hopefully you remember me because I've got a last name that's difficult to pronounce. My name is Joe Giannakos. In addition to being the lead instructor for speech communication, I serve in a variety of committees and I also am the director of the, at this count, I think seven or eight national championships on behalf of Lee College, thanks to your support over the years. Lee College is at a crossroads. For nearly nine decades, this institution has served the city of Baytown and this region by providing a quality education for a reasonable cost. (18:54 - 20:03) Look at any recruitment brochure for any community college in the nation, and that's exactly what you'll be told. This crossroad we face isn't a traditional crisis that has no feasible choices to be made. Instead, it's a road with diverging opportunities. We can choose to continue what we've done for decades and be very, very, let me stress, very good at what we do. Or we can take the other path and aspire to be great. Under this board's watchful eyes and with Dr. Villanueva's steady hand, Lee College not only survived the pandemic, but we have thrived in the post-pandemic era. Where many colleges were forced to diminish the experiences of students in the harsh light of decreased enrollment and restricted funds, Lee College deftly navigated the crisis and can now boast an all-time high enrollment, fiscal stability through our reserve funds, and a renewed excitement about how we can serve this region. I, for one, am in full support of the priorities expressed by the college's administration as they're aspirational and not restrictive to the board's responsibilities, as some had feared. These additional funds from the state of Texas, they're not a windfall, it's not akin to a lottery, but these are monies that we won through sweat equity and a willingness to meet the needs of our service area when it needed it most. (20:04 - 21:15) I was disappointed to see that some members of this community have mischaracterized this opportunity as a tax increase. That logic would have you believe that me not losing weight is actually me gaining weight. Instead, these funds can be put towards looming challenges, including the deferred maintenance that so many have spoken about today. It can be put towards, for example, safeguarding our college's assets from named storm damage. These funds can be used to reinvigorate our ability to innovate rather than simply respond from crisis to crisis, from challenge to challenge. The path we should be on is the path of the ideal student experience. That we can do this with zero added taxation, that we can answer some of these long-term concerns without austerity measures that would punish our students, that we can promote transfer programs to universities even as we provide a ready and able workforce for local industry, this is an opportunity that the college can embrace. It's an opportunity that you, as its elected caretakers, must embrace. I encourage you to do what you've done for several years. Help give our service area a college they can be proud of by placing your faith in this college's administration, its faculty, and its staff. Help us choose the right path in your deliberations this evening. Thank you. (21:22 - 23:30) Georgianne Ward. Hello. I'm Dr. Georgianne Ward, a longtime faculty member at Lee College, a lifelong Baytonian, and a taxpayer. I support the president's proposal for the 6% pay raise, maintenance of our facilities, and storm coverage because I want current and future students and colleagues to see this place the way I see it and the way you see it too. It's a Baytown treasure. Here for the past 18 years, I've gotten to learn from and grow with students and colleagues who feel like family. I've gotten to teach life-changing classes, especially in the honors program and with study abroad. Working here has enriched my life and given me meaningful connections to the Baytown community. Our school has the potential to provide the same rich experience to every student, employee, and community member who comes here. However, the fact is we have buildings in dire need of maintenance and renovation. And when a new or future student walks into an outdated, musty building with obvious HVAC issues, or when said student can't make it to the second floor of some buildings due to barely functional elevators, it's harder for them to recognize the treasure. Similarly, we have talented faculty and staff who stay active in the job market because they need higher wages to support their families. The 6% raise increases the likelihood that the talent we recruit puts down roots here. In short, I support the president's proposal as a taxpayer and a stakeholder who recognizes the important role this college has in our community to make lives better, to me the proposal goes a long way to strengthen the college and help others recognize Lee College for the treasure it is. Karen Guthmiller. (23:39 - 24:59) Good evening Board of Regents and Dr. Villanueva. I must say I arrived a while back at Lee College and some of you were actually board members when I arrived. And at this time today I speak as a senior faculty member who has experienced, while my time here, prosperous times and leaned times with five different presidents, each having different priorities. I have seen many changes on our campus with regard to priorities, some of which have impacted facilities, some facilities changing several times to meet those priorities. I want to focus on the 58 buildings of Lee College and give you some reference. Ten buildings are over 50 years. In fact, I teach in one of the two buildings that was completed in 1961. At that time, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. Ten buildings are between 40 and 50 years old. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were presidents. Twenty-one buildings are between 30 and 40 years old. Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. were presidents. We have 17 buildings that are less than 30 years old. In 2020, the Advanced Technology Complex and the Sports Arena opened. George Bush Jr. was president. (24:59 - 25:33) Now, these buildings have outlived their value if you look at windstorm damage, but we still should consider it. Most of these buildings are serving students year-round in various capacities and are in need of maintenance and repairs. And with record enrollment, these facilities will increase exponentially. So, we are a community college that serves from preschool through senior citizens. This is a place, their place, their second home, their beloved college. We owe them a place to learn, to be safe, and to be proud of. (25:34 - 25:47) Since the arrival of Dr. Vina Ueva, in my opinion, we've accomplished more than the five presidents I served. Her passion for students inspires our passion for students. And it should be the passion for all of us, which I think you all feel. (25:48 - 26:07) We have opportunities to address important needs for this college with our upcoming budget. The $9.5 million we have earned from our student credentials for dual credit and for our transfer. We would not be where we are without the leadership of our administration and our presidents. (26:08 - 26:18) I urge you to support their recommendations. Thank you. Hunter McHugh-Smith. (26:28 - 28:28) Good evening, board members. My name is Hunter McHugh-Smith, and I'm happy to be here tonight to represent the Lee College Staff Assembly. I would like to start by giving you a little story about me and myself and my journey here at Lee College and ask you to consider stories like mine as you are considering the budget. So, at 17, I was told that I needed to pay my way through college, and I immediately thought, wow, I'm going to look at community colleges, which brought me here. While I was a student here, I was engaged in the honors program as well as student government. And in 2021, and I graduated from here in 2016. In 2021, I cried happy tears on the phone as Amanda Summers offered me a full-time position here, which was my first salaried position and my first position that I ever had with benefits. And I greatly have appreciated that throughout the years. However, in the last six months alone, serving as Staff Assembly President, I have unfortunately seen six of my colleagues that are valuable and very dedicated to the Lee College mission and the growth of this college leave due to finding better economic opportunities elsewhere at other academic institutions or other institutions across the city of Houston. I would like to ask that you please give the employees of Lee College, which stands as a very invaluable part of Baytown and the surrounding communities, the 6% raise they desperately deserve. In order to serve our community, empower our students, and support our dedicated employees, I believe that we need to give our employees the funds that they deserve in this day and age. I believe that, like me, employment here at Lee College, as well as being a student here at Lee College, can change people's lives for the better. And I believe that we can do that with the budget increase for the salary for our valuable employees. Thank you so much for your time. Michael Woodson. (28:35 - 30:05) Thank you very much for your service. I know how important it is and that it can be a task, you know, a labor of love. So thank you so much for what you do. And I'm Michael Woodson. When I teach English, I've been doing that since 2016. I've been teaching in the area since 1980. And I've taught at HTC and I've taught mostly at San Jack South. This is a special college for me. You know, just personally, I feel like it's a community. I'm very proud of it and it's a jewel, for sure. I want to say one thing about the insurance. That seems like a no-brainer to me, like we have to be covered or FEMA, you know, will not give us assistance when we see the destruction that these storms bring in. Of course, I'm for the increase in our salaries. I just remember right after COVID seeing a loaf of bread go up. You know, I saw the cost of cooking oil go up and I'm like, in my life, I've never seen it go back down. So six percent, I don't know. And then lastly, the facilities. I love the school and actually the layout is kind of interesting. But like sometimes I look at it like it's my living room and my parents are coming in to visit and I haven't seen them in maybe five years. And I'm looking around and it's like, maybe I need to paint this living room a little bit, you know. And so, you know, education has changed since 1980. (30:05 - 31:08) When I started, it used to be lecture and now we, you know, we're doing more interactive learning and the classrooms that haven't, you know, addressed that, for example, needs to be, you know, like updated so that we can educate in the way that the state of Texas expects us to, you know, with team learning and that kind of thing. It's required. And the other thing, like the ADA compliance, like, you know, if I go down huddle, I'm like, there's no way that this could be. I don't know. Maybe we are ADA compliant, but we need to be, right? And so, to not spend funds on those issues, especially the infrastructure, concerns me. And I think, you know, we need to keep up our infrastructure. We need to keep up our campus so the students feel welcomed, you know, and at home. Thank you. Daniel Christie. (31:19 - 34:18) Good evening, everybody. My name is Daniel Christie. I am, this is my official title at the college, information service specialist, which in no way describes what I do. I make that joke all of the time. I do a lot of different things, helping students get ready and registered for classes and applications, all those types of things. One of the primary things that I do on campus is I reserve facilities. And that's going to be the primary thing I talked to you about this evening, is the state of facilities and things that I see and how I think some of the discussion might impact that. So, as I say that, once again, thank you for the opportunity to be here. I don't know that I can say anything that my colleagues haven't really addressed pretty thoroughly throughout the evening. One thing I don't recall having been addressed is how changes to something like the tax rate at this time might impact our future ability, our solvency moving forward. I know that I trust Annette and her ability to do a good budget and everything along those lines. With that said, I have concerns, I have concerns about the deferred maintenance. That's been talked about a lot. My primary concerns are about how we will address the future and some of the needs for this campus moving forward. And what I mean by that is we have some buildings that eventually, not tomorrow, not even next year, eventually I think will have to come down. I spent a lot of time working with the community on reserving facilities. And I'm going to give you an easy example that just happened today. I had a young lady come in. She's with a community group. They would like to do a choral performance. And we were discussing different facilities that they could rent. I might get in trouble for saying this next part. In that discussion, we talked about Tucker Hall. She happened to be in a wheelchair. This facility is not ADA compliant. If she needs to get on this stage, guess what she can't do? Get on this stage. I think those are the types of things that we need to be prepared for in the future. I know that somebody mentioned it earlier and it's always a concern for me. We do have some elevators on campus, particularly in John Britt Hall, that do not function as they should all the time. And that always worries me. I want us to be welcoming and able to accommodate those students as needed. As somebody who rents facilities to the community and reserves facilities for the faculty and staff on this campus, that is a genuine concern for me about how we're going to look to the future. All those things. I did not say this part and I'm not here to represent the Administrative Assembly, but I am the president of the Administrative Assembly. I think it would be disingenuous for me to act like a 6% raise would not be a tremendous benefit for everybody across the board at this campus. But my primary concern is how adjustments to the tax rate would impact our future as an institution and the facilities that we'll be able to provide for our faculty, our staff, and our students primarily. Thank you very much for your time. Y'all have a good night. Christy Pisana. (34:31 - 34:59) Good evening. My name is Christy Pisana. I am a longtime resident. I was born and raised here. I am also an employee and a taxpayer. My family holds three generations of Lee College graduates. My two sisters and I all graduated from here, from Lee College. So Lee College has a special heart and place for me. I would like to share my support in the 6% raise. (35:00 - 36:27) I'd like to share a little bit of my personal reasons and my personal journey. I've completed my undergrad here as I worked here. And as a single parent, I passed up the opportunity to work here to go to another institution because the salary is not competitive. Unfortunately, that was my case. And I want to share that because I'm sure I'm not the only one. And I would like to have you consider people that have a single income, just single people, single parents. I returned, obviously not for the salary, this go-round. It's truly a fact of how remarkable the people that work here are. That's why I returned. I took a huge pay cut to return. But the people that I work with are phenomenal. The service that Lee College provides is phenomenal. And I urge you to consider to increase that raise to match the service that is provided here. Thank you. That's all of our speakers, Mr. Chairman. (36:28 - 36:39) Thank you very much. And thank all of you for participating. Okay. At this time, we're going to adjourn the public hearing.