So far $250,000 for design, $1.2 million for parking lot, $950,000 from Foundation, at least  $1.8 million later; Only McCasland challenges expenditures

At the March 2018 Governing Board meeting, Wills’ staff easily snookered the College Governing Board into taking the first big steps toward construction of the new soccer field. Only Deb McCasland raised relevant questions about it. Here are the steps the staff took in moving ahead with the project.

Step 1: The staff recommended to the Board that $1.2 million for a parking lot that will service the soccer field a.k.a. multi-purpose field, be removed from the capital budget and placed in the deferred maintenance fund. This is a calculated move that accomplishes two things: First, it tends to help disguise the total cost of the future soccer field while moving out of the capital fund into the deferred maintenance fund. Second, it essentially removes from Governing Board control any future adverse decision about constructing the parking lot. (Note West-County Representative Pat McCarver’s statement in the VIDEO below regarding Board authority on deferred maintenance items.)  A helpful move, to say the least.

Step 2: The staff recommended that $250,000 be set aside to essentially design the soccer field. The only opposition to this expenditure came from representative Deb McCasland who charged that approval of the design was in effect approval by the Board of the entire project. Astonishingly, the Governing Board has never indicated in a public discussion that it believes the College should build a soccer field on the Prescott Campus. However, while everyone at the March meeting knew what was really happening, only Deb McCasland had the character and courage to publicly question the expenditures.  

Step 3. As a part of the strategy, the Foundation will be asked to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the project (rather than raise hundreds of thousands for student scholarships). To this end, the printed College Capital Budget, which was distributed at the March meeting, indicated that the College Foundation was anticipating contributing $950,000 to support building the soccer field.

All in all, it was a great day for Wills and her staff as they slipped construction of the soccer field past the weak and ineffectual Board majority. If you want a tutorial on how easy it is to manipulate a  weak Governing Board, please take about three minutes and carefully analyze the Board discussion contained on the video below.