Board Takes Action to"Postpones All Employment Hiring" at June 12, 2019 Board Meeting

"A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity." -Dalai Lama

(Caveat: Sausage making is not for the faint at heart)

Regardless of board politics, we have a fiduciary responsibility prescribed by state statute to be transparent in our process which should be taken with gravity.

On June 12, 2019 at the Regular Board Meeting of the Rio Hondo College, in closed session, the board took action to "postpone all employment hiring till the August 14th Regular Board Meeting". You may not know this because the motion and the vote was not adequately reported out and recorded in the minutes. The minutes did say that each of the four hiring was "tabled" which was not accurate. There is a difference between table and postponement (Robert's Rules). Since then, I have "noticed reconsideration" to bring back the minutes for clerical correction to remedy the violation. The hires postponed are:

 Full-Time, Tenure-Track, Sociology Instructor
 Full-Time, Tenure-Track, Chicana/o Studies Instructor
 Dean, Behavioral and Social Sciences
 Interim Grant Manager, Outreach and Concurrent/Dual Enrollment

Nevertheless, the motion and vote is as follows (which is public information and the Board has a statutory responsibility to report out)

It was moved by Trustee Valladares and seconded by Trustee Lomeli to "postpone all employment hiring till the August `4th, 2019 Regular Board meeting".
Votes:
Valladares: Yes
Lomeli: Yes
Santana: Yes
Garcia: Yes
Mendez: No

My reasoning for my "no" vote is that any delay in the hiring of faculty for the Fall semester would have a negative impact on students as the respective faculty member needs time to prepare for Fall classes. In addition, the postponed Dean position should not be delayed since the District is experiencing an issue with the failed new centralized method of scheduling and must revert back to the old method led by each department. This large error will cost the college millions in lost, miscalculated, FTES. Each department is scrambling to correct the error to prevent any further hemorrhaging in FTES/funds. Delaying the hiring of a Dean is detrimental to the respective department, faculty, staff and students. We can not afford any delay in the appointment of a dean which the superintendent was ready to recommend in June. A postponement is shortsighted.

Squirrelly Process
Nonetheless, the positions were officially "postponed til August. However, an odd thing occurred at the July 10, 2019 regular meeting of the Board of Trustees, two of the four positions postponed appeared on the closed session agenda for hiring. Ok, so the board postponed and then unpostponed? Not really, after the board took action to postpone only the board (as a whole) can undue that action (reconsideration) not any single board member. So it occurred despite any basic (legislative-Rules) process.

The peculiar thing is why only the two were unpostponed and hired? Why leave out the Dean position and the grant manager? I don't know. I could speculate but i'd rather not get into any board members mens-rae.

There it is in full transparency.


Agenda for June 12, 2019