TORRINGTON – The Eastern Wyoming College Board of Trustees met on Tuesday, June 10. The meeting was called to order by chairwoman Jackie Van Mark.

A motion was made by trustee Randy Adams to approve the evening’s agenda, which was seconded by trustee Doug Mercer. With no discussion, the motion to approve carried. A motion was made by trustee Katherine Patrick, which was second by trustee Rick Vonburg, to approve the May 13 meeting minutes as presented. With no discussion or corrections. the motion carried with a vote. 

With no introductions or public comments, the board moved on to item six where they heard administrative reports, beginning with Dr. Jeffry Hawes, college president. 

Hawes began by thanking the board for their patience regarding the IT difficulties during the work session held earlier Tuesday.

“At the end of my report, I will say this, if there are any questions that you have on data, I would like to just summarize. Moving forward, after we work with the college leadership and the employees over the summer and bring back a set of goals for approving for future years. Once that occurs, we will start building out the dashboards again. That will additional – the KPIs we have, I see staying – but we will be looking at additional KPIs. So, if the board has questions whether it’s at this meeting or the next meeting, or when we present those goals formally, please don’t hesitate to bring those up,” Hawes explained. “Also help prep us for thinking about what types of questions you would have regarding any of those issues.”

Hawes noted before he read the few items listed under his report, members of the board could ask questions or provide feedback for the July or August meeting when a full set of goals is brought back. With no questions or feedback, Hawes moved on in his report. 

“I would like to just put a special ‘thank you’ out to Martin Winchell, Amber Holland, who just secured an L. Bogan grant that I referred to earlier. That will be deployed in this next fiscal year,” Hawes explained. “The board approved that agronomy trailer. We now have an animal science trailer that we will bring to completion. It’s really pretty exciting where these resources are going to go for the college. 

“I did not bring it to the board yet; I’m still reviewing it. But on the agronomy trailer, John Deere has now worked up the next layer, so part of the direct negotiation is going through. They’ve now done the full blueprint on the trailer,” Hawes continued.

He noted he would send the blueprints and information on to the board once he reviewed it and asked questions. 

“I think you would like to see some of the work that’s going into that trailer,” Hawes told the trustees. “It’s really pretty exciting stuff.”

Hawes also explained the schematic is “very detailed” and he further stated the detail is what required a more direct negotiation. 

“On the animal science trailer, we may not have that process work in the same way. It might actually have to be an Rfp and we have to help recruit vendors in because this will not require that same type of proprietary content that John Deere, the Green Star System, requires,” Hawes explained. “It is a little more challenging because it’s nice to have a vendor that says, ‘Here’s our product. Here’s what we can showcase.’ We’re not going to have that on this next one. But there are some really amazing things they were going to embed in this everything from ultrasound, you know. I’ll be candid as they’re working in our vet tech program goes, ‘We’d like to have access to that.’ Well, you’ll be able to have access to it. So, there’s just a lot of things that they’re going we’re going to start building into that Rfp. We’ll bring that to the board in the coming and I don’t know how long it’s longing to take Martin Winchell and the team to develop that Rfp. But our plan is to get that as soon as possible to the board of trustees for some next layer of ratification on the board agenda tonight just to provide a quick update.”

Hawes provided a quick update on the board agenda.

“There are two items that I asked, after the approval of the agenda, and we submitted the agenda. I came back to the board chair with two corrections again. This is not a regular practice that we want to do,” Hawes explained. “We want fact, stay away from these types of corrections. But there is a rationale of why, if you look at items 8.4 and 8.5, both of these particular areas are tied to the whip authorization of funds and earlier I mentioned the idea of a burn rate when we talk about grant. Well, of course, I always hate using the word burn rate when you start talking about dollars. Because people what do you mean, burn rate? Just burn rate. Burn rates are just tracking the pace at which you’re executing the grant that they’ve delivered to you and candidly, we’ve been behind on our whip burn rates from the very beginning and there was a reason for that. I was not willing. We were approved in July of 2023, to start expending dollars as of July 1, 2023.”

Hawes stated he knew the college would be approved. 

“We knew we were going to be approved, but the attorney general (AG) at the state level had not signed off on the grant with final signature from the governor’s office. That didn’t actually happen until almost September 1,” Hawes said. “Some colleges say, ‘We’re just going to start spending money, but if the AG would have held up the grant, then I would have spent money that we actually would not have had come in.”

Hawes noted he purposely made the decision not to move forward with grant spending.

“Now, what that did was that pushed back hiring processes and whatever dollars were approved in that grant cycle for that year, three, a quarter of the year was already gone and you can’t just save it for next year’s grant cycle,” Hawes explained. “We were behind in the burn rate and then by time we brought some of the talent in, they had to formulate finalize plans and make sure the equipment’s what they really needed to carry out the goals.”

Hawes reported burn rates are on track which opened the door for more funding opportunities for the college. He also stated John Hansen, college vice president, was out of town for the week. Hawes noted Hansen will have some “really good news to share” during the next board meeting. Hawes stated summer enrollment was up. He further stated something needs to be done regarding coverage when faculty goes on vacation. Hawes explained the college is looking at a communication strategy.

Next, chief financial officer, Kwin Wilkes reported to the board. 

“So, we are to the 11th hour, we want to call it that. We’re 11 months through,” Wilkes began.

Wilkes further stated the college has received 16 million dollars at this point, which is 87% of the budgeted amount. He stated they are waiting on the third quarter of health and retirement reimbursements. After a bit more discussion, Wilkes reported on the axillary fund.

“Through the end of May, we have received 1.3 million with the transfers at 693 and you’ll note the 1.3 million is basically a 108% of the amount budgeted. So, on the revenue side, we did, we did well,” Wilkes explained. “The way I’m budgeting and we talked about it last month when I presented the preliminary budget, the amount of transfers we’re expecting to help balance things is much less, like a 2/3 less. So, that’s a positive moving forward. With those two together, we’re just over two million, which in that realm is 105% of the amount that was budgeted.”

Wilkes also presented a report on the expense side of the axillary fund.

“This one’s a little bit harder,” Wilkes said. “You’ll note that we have budgeted 1.9 million. We’re at 1.7. I have received this week, two bills from Sodexo, that total about 90,000 so if you add those to the mix, we’re getting close to the amount budgeted. So, we may be a little bit over budget when it’s all said and done on this one, I think.”

Wilkes explained the oversight was partly due to the issues with Sodexo at the beginning of the fiscal year. 

“I think the positive is that we’ve raised the meal plan rates for next year, which will help out immensely on how this comes out. We’re underfunded in the sense that we’re not where we should be on the meal plans that we charge,” Wilkes said. 

Moving on to the fund balance, as of the end of May, Wilkes noted fund ten account was at 2.5 million, with about 75,000emcumbered. Wilkes noted it was a little higher than normal but there was a purchasing deadline. Fund 11 is at 1.2 million with no money encumbered, Wilkes reported. The auxiliary fund is at 316,000, with no money encumbered. Wilkes also explained fund 19 and fund 22 were negative balances tied to reimbursements for title four funds. Wilkes noted the bulk of the money in fund 72 comes in from the county as a levy, approved by voters. Wilkes said he will monitor it noting there could come a point in time where the amount of the fund will equal the amount owed for the GEO bond. 

“That’s probably two to three years down the road, but that balance is growing and we’re probably a third to, I don’t know how close a half, towards the amount that’s still owed on those two bonds,” Wilkes said. 

Trustee Kurt Sittner asked for an update on the ERC (employee retention credit) situation.

“We have received notice from the taxing group that worked us through the employee retention credit. Right now, we had our initial claim submitted. I believe, we were probably one of two community colleges here in Wyoming that had submitted. After the original claim went in, the government had asked for some additional paperwork,” Hawes explained. 

Hawes noted Wilkes and Patrick Korell spent an additional 00 hours getting paperwork together. He also stated a lot of people, including a tax attorney he knew felt the college was in a good position still. 

“But there’s not a lot of approvals moving out in the current administration on this. We have a tax attorney who feels like we’ve got an application that’s very solid, but there’s not necessarily a lot of movement on any dollars associated with that,” Hawes reported.

Hawes stated they were in the process of appealing the application denial. 

“It’s still in the pipeline. We have been denied but we are still looking to see what that next strategy is,” Hawes concluded. 

Moving on to item seven, the board approved the consent agenda which included items 7.1, ratification of expenditure report from Wilkes and item 7.2, ratification of positions for Alan “AJ” Moore as nursing instructor at the Torrington campus. 

Under item eight, board action items, the board approved item 8.1, honored retiree status for Kim Jones; 8.2, emeritus status for Jake Clark; 8.3, honored retire status for Don Snyder; 8.4, a second memorandum of understanding between Eastern Wyoming College and SHAPPS and item 8.5, to authorize funds to be used for purchase of a pick-up.

After a short discussion, the board moved into an executive session to consider information classified as confidential by law and personnel matters and to consider, discuss and conduct safety and security planning that, if disclosed, would pose a threat to the safety of life or property.

Following the executive session, the board moved on to item 12 of the agenda, the first reading of board policy 2.13.

“Just a quick note for the record, this is to ensure compliance with the new Wyoming statute. It adds a bullet point to the policy and then directs the president, with his team, to develop an appropriate AR to comply with the law,” Korell noted. 

“I will read the action here. This will be adopted upon first reading as an emergency policy effective throughout the comment period to comply with the requirements of the Wyoming Repeal Gun Free Zones Act,” Van Mark stated. “Is there a motion to approve?”

Trustee Vonburg made the motion to adopt the policy, which was seconded by trustee Patrick. With no discussion, the motion carried by vote and the emergency policy was adopted. 

With no further business, a Van Mark adjourned the meeting.