Not on February 14 Agenda; Discussion about how not to respond held during February 13 retreat
Apparently, until the Chino Valley Town Council asks the College to review the proposed raceway, it won’t be put on the agenda for discussion. Furthermore, Board members will apparently continue (with the exception of Deb McCasland) to ignore emails from interested citizens asking questions. (So much for elected officials responding to their constituents.) That was the gist of the retreat on the 13th and the general meeting on the 14th.College loses motions in federal court; whistle-blower lawsuit on way to jury
The District Governing Board went into executive session February 14, 2017 to apparently discuss the Hamilton v. Yavapai College multi-million-dollar lawsuit. Following the closed session, there was no comment on what, if anything, was discussed. The dispute is now headed for trial on the whistleblower’s claims. Here are the details that you will only find in the Blog.
Federal judge Murray Snow ruled in December, 2016 that a second whistle-blower case against the Yavapai College flight program will proceed. The case alleges that Yavapai College’s airplane pilot program took millions of dollars from the VA by submitting false claims for veteran education benefits while knowingly violating the VA’s enrollment limitations.
The Complaint was filed by the former director of aviation programs at Yavapai College, Dan Hamilton, and alleges that Yavapai College and its airplane program partner, NorthAire Aviation, violated the Veteran’s Administration funding rule that limits VA beneficiary enrollment to 85% in any program. (In other words, the program must have at least 15% of its enrollees as civilians.)
The Complaint alleges schemes wherein NorthAire improperly paid for students whom the program certified were not receiving any institutional aid and that the program improperly counted students who were not in the airplane program including part-time, non-flight training, high school students for whom YC waived tuition. The 85% enrollment limitation is the VA’s safeguard to guarantee that the programs have real world relevance, demand and market driven pricing.
In an earlier ruling on December 6, 2016, Judge Murray Snow denied a motion to dismiss filed by Yavapai College’s partner NorthAire. NorthAire argued that as a mere contractor with the College who did not, itself, submit the claims or certifications to the VA, it could not be held liable for the program’s fraud.
Slide begun ten years ago continues
The College reported at the February 14, 2317 Governing Board meeting that enrollment was down district-wide by 4% in the fall, 2016 and by 2% in the spring, 2016. The College seemed happy the spring reduction was not as great as the fall.
As the College has done for years now, it blamed the absence of a recession and was content to say its decline was similar to that of other community colleges. The College and the Governing Board has done little to focus on the reasons for the decline.
The College stated that by simply calling students who had not re-registered for the spring semester, it caused several to do so. (Not rocket science.) This seemed to the Administration a novel idea.
The Verde Campus has shown a slight increase in enrollment (using headcount) over the past two years.
Here is a chart showing the decline of enrollment by more than 6,000 students over the past several years using actual headcount as announced by the College.
Increase well above inflationary rate: McCasland “no,” Harris “yes”
The request from the Yavapai community college administration to increase tuition for the 2017-18 academic year by 5% went sailing through the governing board on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 by a 4-1 vote. Deb McCasland, who represents about one-half of the Verde Valley, voted “no.” Connie Harris, the newly appointed representative from the Verde Valley District #3 fell in line with the County’s west-side majority and voted “yes.” The vote by Harris was the first time in four years that the District #3 representative voted to approve the tuition increase. Ms. Harris did not utter a word during the discussion on the issue of increasing tuition.
Representative Deb McCasland was the only member of the Board who put hard questions to the College during its presentation. The College said it had to increase tuition because it didn’t want to increase the property tax rate. It also blamed the reduction in state aid that occurred about six years ago to justify the increase.
The vote was predicted by the blog earlier this past week. The community college administration has increased tuition every year in some form for more than a decade. Also as predicted by the Blog, there was no information regarding the actual need for such an increase. In other works, neither the budget nor anticipated expenses were discussed. Furthermore, there was no discussion about cutting back on the huge building/remodeling spree that continues in the District.
Tuition will always be increased under this approach because there is never a showing by the College of the actual new expenses that must be covered by an increase. The expenses are discussed from two to three months later.
The following video contains the nine-minute Board “discussion” about increasing tuition. (Apology for word “stater” rather than “state” in early slide.)
Final 2012 report shows 86% of bond benefits flowed to West County Projects while taxpayers there pay only an estimated 62% in property taxes on the bond
After almost five years, there are still persons asking how the College spent the General Obligation Bond of $69.5 million approved in 2000. To answer that question, the Blog went back to the final spending report issued by the College and posted on the June, 2012 agenda.
Based on that report, it appears that 86% of the bond proceeds went to projects on the west side of Yavapai County, which has 2/3 or the total County population. The remaining 14% went to the east side of the County which has about 1/3 of the total County population.
The bond is paid through secondary property taxes. Because the Sedona taxing district lies within the east side of the County and has a large amount of expensive property, it is estimated that taxpayers in Sedona and the Verde Valley pay about 38% on the secondary bond each year but receive only 14% of the benefit from it.
The short one-minute video that follows sets out the data as it was provided to the District Governing Board by the College at the June, 2012 Board meeting. Most residents living on the east side of the County consider the allocation of revenue to build and upgrade the Verde Valley as unfair when compared to the building and upgrading of facilities on the west side of the County. See if you don’t agree.
College reports to District Governing Board a 2% decline in Spring, 2017 enrollment; Verde Campus up
The College will report at the Tuesday, February 14 meeting of the District Governing Board that it has continued its ten-year slide in enrollment for students seeking college credit classes as measured by headcount. According to data provided the public by the College prior to the meeting, total student (for-credit) enrollment in Spring 2017 is down 2% compared to spring, 2016.
The College will also report that the Verde Valley Campus experienced a “slight increase” in its on-campus headcount–a trend in the last two years. The Verde Valley Fall Community education programs grew by 11%.
Online enrollment increased by 6% but the increase did not prevent the College from an overall decline as measured by headcount.
The fall 2016 enrollment by the independently run Osher Life Long Learning non-profit corporation grew by 22% when compared to fall 2015.
The College did not report out the total comparative data regarding fall, 2016 enrollment in advance of the Tuesday, February 14 meeting.
Note that despite the continued decline in actual students, those who registered at the College took more classes for college credit when compared to students enrolling in spring, 2016. (Thus the Full-time Student Equivalent comparison.) The following graph will be presented to the Governing Board at the Tuesday meeting by the College.
Governing Board to determine increase on Valentine’s Day; tuition increased in some form every year for the past decade (Where is the student voice on tuition?)
Commentary Bob Oliphant
It appears that the Yavapai Community College is on its way to deliver a “Valentine’s day gift” to students wrapped up as a 5% tuition increase. This increase will likely occur at the District Governing Board meeting Tuesday, February 14 in Prescott. The “gift” will be swathed in hyper-technical rhetoric considered the “black art” of accounting and unhelpful comparisons between tuition charged at the community college and that charged at four-year universities and other community colleges. Absent will be sparse serious in-depth Governing Board analysis of spending priorities, excess revenue from 2015-16, reducing its wild capital building spree, the financial impact of losing 6,000 students by headcount in ten years, the alleged veteran aeronautics tuition/fee scam, or a consideration of areas where real savings could be achieved.
Relevant to any requested tuition increase is the fact that last month the College disclosed in writing that in fiscal year 2015-16 it didn’t use about $10 million in revenue. Of that amount, $8 million was apparently provided by taxes and tuition. Because it didn’t spend the budgeted $10 million, the College asked and received Governing Board approval to retroactively modify the 2015-16 budget.
According to the College’s January report, it received $44 million in taxes and tuition revenue in 2015-16 for use in the general fund that pays for education. However, it didn’t spend $4 million of the revenue. In its plant fund, the College said it intended to use $12.8 million of the taxes and tuition it collected on parking lots and buildings. However, it reported it used only $8.4 million.
To a taxpayer, this ostensibly looks like there is over $8 million in revenue that should be available for use in a 2017-18 budget. Why then ask for a tuition increase?
The College’s Valentine’s day greeting card to students for 2017 should read something like this: “We’re bursting with happiness that we can now fill, our overflowing vaults, with 5% more from your personal till.”
Bob Oliphant
Gifts, grants, tuition and taxpayer money results in fantastic CTEC–Unfortnately, about 1/3 high school students in County don’t have access to the facility
Working closely with the West County High School Mountain Institute Joint Technical Education District (JTED), Yavapai College has created a state-of-the-art Career and Technical Education Center at the Prescott airport. The total investment over the past nine years including gifts, contributions, tuition, and taxpayer revenue is close to $20 million dollars. Recently, the College put several million into completely remodeling the Center.
Unfortunately, high school students from the East side of the County (Verde Valley) do not have access to this wonderful facility. Only high school students on the West side of the County.
President Penelope Wills’ indicated to the Clarkdale town council that if the Verde Valley wanted a similar facility on a smaller scale, it would have to do so on its own. Incredible!
The following video provides a three minute snapshot of a portion of the CTEC remodeling projects that are just now being completed along with some of the new state-of-the-art machinery.
Video provides snapshot of recent construction and renovation paid for by County property taxes
Few taxpayers in Yavapai County have any real idea about how their property taxes that are paid to the Community College are being used. The fact is the College administration is spending millions of dollars of it on construction projects throughout the County. It has taken from $6 million to $8 million every year and rather than put it into education programs, it has diverted it to construction projects.
By far the greatest spending is occurring on the West side of the County, especially on the Prescott Campus and at the Career and Technical Education Center (CTEC).
The following four-minute video provides a snapshot of some of the construction that has occurred or is occurring solely on the Prescott Campus. It is amazing.
Video shows some of the YC Parking lot reconstruction/resurfacing in last two years on West side of County–your tax money at work
The following three-minute video shows some of the construction of new parking lots and repaved lots carried out by Yavapai College on the West side of the County in the last two years.
A second video in production will show you actual construction of buildings, etc. All the while, the headcount, the College reports losing about 6,000 credit students in the last ten years.