ACFB – CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEXT ACADEMIC YEAR — April 2004

[1] The ACFB expresses its appreciation to the ACC Board of Trustees for the opportunity provided by the committee to contribute to the strategic discussions within this very useful and important community institution. We hope that the results of our efforts will encourage further use by the Board of this approach to gathering knowledgeable community perspectives for use by the Board and administration. In keeping with the concept of specific-term trustee-initiated appointments, we are concluding this incarnation of the committee with this final set of reports and recommendations. Several of us will gladly serve further on request if the committee is reconstituted after the trustee elections, as we recommend.

[2] We commend the supporting ACC staff, especially Ben Ferrell, Neil Vickers, and Phyllis Kalz, for their help and participation. They provided both needed information and useful insights, as well as the sincere interest in our perspectives and ideas that made the monthly discussions enjoyable for all of us and made us feel that our time was not being wasted.

[3] We feel that the method of committee-member selection used (nomination by particular trustees) is a good one (in spite of a significant dropout rate), and hope that the availability of this year’s reports and discussion documents will aid trustees and potential nominees in deciding if sustained participation is feasible in certain cases. It might be beneficial to also designate a broader group of consultants on whom the monthly-meeting committee could call for specific topics or for less frequent reviews of its conclusions.

[4] As we wind up the first committee, we leave one major loose end (out-of-district Early College Start policy) and several important topics within our scope that we did not significantly address this year. The information needed for full examination of the early college start issue is described in our earlier preliminary report on that topic. Other topics seen as worthy of substantial ACFB attention next year are:

[a] Use of an objective rather than historical basis for budget allocations. While some analytical work has been done in this area by the business-office staff, ACC budgeting does not at this time seem to be generally based on objective needs analysis or to reflect a budget model that would be open to examination and cumulative improvement.

[b] Extension of the preliminary work done so far on an economic model of college operations. This is particularly important for assessing the expected impact of program expansions or limitations, but it should also become a major context for strategic discussion and planning.

[c] Unified planning for scholarship funding, taking into account related effects such as the impact of education tax credits. This analysis should also include a model of the impact on enrollment and achievement if a substantially larger fraction of ACC resources were directed to needs-based scholarships.

[d] Review of ACC class-scheduling methodology, and appropriate economic modeling of scheduling effects. This was the primary area of financial impact found by the Comptroller’s audit, and the preliminary indications are that the methods used to control average class size may be counterproductive in some cases and ineffective in others.

[e] Review of financial impact of college provision of student textbooks. Since textbook costs rival or exceed tuition costs in many cases, and since late acquisition of textbooks is a significant contributor to student underperformance, we think that the suggestion that ACC provide textbooks (perhaps in a way similar to that used in high school) should be investigated for academic and financial feasibility (the ACFB would examine the financial issues). This is of particular interest at Texas community colleges because the comparatively low tuition for in-district students means that many do not get to take full advantage of the generous Hope federal tax credit, from which student-purchased books are excluded. But the biggest prospective savings is in sharing book costs among many students and minimizing forced but immaterial changes in book editions.

[5] We request that the Board grant the current ACFB chair “interim” authority to delegate investigation tasks during the period between the Board elections and the reconvening of the ACFB (if the Board chooses to reconstitute it), subject to the normal discretion of the college staff in providing requested information or assistance.