HR Listening Session

Fred Davis, our Spokane Colleges’ CHRO, joined our meeting. Fred has an extensive background in student services in higher education and HR in the private sector. 

Fred described several areas that HR is responsible for. 

Human Resources Employee Services includes recruiting, leave, accommodations, classification, investigations, and management development.

Human Resources Information Services includes workforce data, onboarding, offboarding, contracting and compensation, and the Performance Appraisal System.

District Human Resources and the Talent Development areas are both part of HR as well.

There are currently about 1900 employees at Spokane Colleges. This includes about 360 full-time faculty and about 530 adjunct faculty.

There have been issues with the workflows in areas like position requests, screening and interviewing, offers, and onboarding. Fred and his team are working on clarifying and improving the workflow processes. He shared examples such as improving our job announcements and then building better strategies for getting those job announcements to the right people so that we are getting great applicants. He talked about opportunities like having classified position recruitments happening all the time and the need to make sure that candidates in the screening process have a good experience.

Fred said that diversity should be considered and embedded throughout all aspects of recruitment and screening processes.

Fred discussed some aspects of training. There will be a catalogue that includes upcoming trainings in order to help people predict and plan on trainings they should attend. The training needs and opportunities for faculty will be clarified and presented in a simpler way so that faculty can focus on teaching rather than having to figure out which trainings need to be attended.

Cultural competence training will become embedded in our trainings, especially in the trainings related to recruiting and screening. 

Fred wants to provide opportunities to develop our future Spokane Colleges’ leaders. 

There was a question about how to develop offboarding training for employees. This will likely require some collaboration between HR and payroll/benefits and will be a topic of conversation in Fred’s office.

There were concerns shared about OTHRS and the recording of our trainings. Fred explained that HR is working on improving the logistics behind the completing and recording of trainings, and this will be updated at some point in the future.

If you have recommendations about training or support needed for faculty from HR, please send those to Fred. You can also reach out to Fred with any questions about HR.

Bev shared that Fred has been great to work with and has been a positive addition to Spokane Colleges. 

Old Business

Communications

Greg has been researching possible text message platforms including meeting with potential vendors. We hope to have that up and running next fall. 

If you have not yet gotten it done, please get your personal email to Bev so that we can communicate. Bev’s email is beverly.daily@washingtonea.org. Do not send your personal email through the Spokane Colleges’ email system.

WEA Grant

We have two events coming up so please consider attending. They are the Wellpinit High School Pow Wow on May 20 at 6270 Ford Wellpinit Road. Dinner is at 5:30 pm and the Grand Entry is at 7 pm.

There will be a family picnic on May 28th from 11 am to noon. This will be at the Reuben Trejo Dual Academy, 6903 E Fourth Ave, Spokane Valley.

You can reach out to Christina MitmaMomono with any questions about either event.

Legislative Update

There are several federal legislative concerns. One is that we get about 14 million dollars for Headstart, so we are concerned about those funds going away.

Representative Baumgartner will be on campus at SCC, SFCC, and Headstart. Chancellor Brockbank is planning to show how important our programs are for all of our students, from Headstart all the way through our BAS programs. Our chancellor has spent time in Washington, D.C. in order to advocate for support for higher education. When the representative is on campus, we will have the opportunity to showcase our programs and how we serve students. Please keep focused on sharing the importance of the work we do when he is visiting with us.

There is something called the College Cost Reduction Act. This would change the eligibility for Pell grants, which will make it so that students under 8 credits would not be eligible for Pell. 

There is a proposal called risk sharing, which basically says that if a student gets an education and then defaults on their student loans after graduation, then the colleges become responsible for a portion of the student’s loans.

They may be eliminating work-study.

They may be eliminating direct subsidized loans for undergraduates..

One of the educational pieces for our federal legislators is that many states fund ABE through K-12, but our state funds ABE through the colleges, so we are trying to show the impact that this would have for us.

Programs like TRIo and GearUp may be eliminated.

For our state budget, it is not as bad as anticipated. We are looking at a 0.5% budget cut. We also will not be continuing to receive the OFM mistake funds.

Several of the line-item funds we get from the state budget will be added to the base budget rather than being earmarks. This includes the high-demand funds and nursing funds. This may give us more flexibility, but it could impact us more significantly if there is a budget cut. AHE will need to keep track of those budgets and continue to advocate that those funds need to be spent on faculty, even though they are part of the larger base budget.

The state budget has not been approved yet. The governor has 20 days to approve the budget. He can veto some sections of the budget without vetoing the entire thing.

Some funds have been eliminated, such as the expansion of the CDL program or Cyber program.

The current plan is that the state will fund 79% of the COLA for faculty, which means Spokane Colleges will have to fund the other 21%.

The messaging at SCC and SFCC has been fairly different about how the two schools will be moving forward and dealing with the shifts in budgets. There will be some reduced spending on both campuses. For example, at SCC the PACE program will not continue next year, and the Valley Center will be closed.

There was a bill that was passed to change the way our COLAs are calculated. This will move us from the Seattle index to the IPD, a national index. This means that the COLAs will likely be lower by 0.5-1% moving forward.

We are waiting to hear more about all the potential changes and impacts from both state and federal legislators.

You may want to read the skinny budget from President Trump’s office. This will show what he has proposed and may influence federal legislation.

Bookstore Update

The committee has narrowed down the options to three vendors. If you have questions you would like the vendors to speak to, please send your questions in advance. Watch for an email telling you who the questions should be sent to. On June 6, there will be an opportunity for faculty to hear from each of the vendors. If you have concerns about your programs or students being served, be sure to send your questions in advance. In the meantime, you can ask Lyn Megow, Renee Compton, Ben Ugaldea, or Melinda Martin questions.

Elections

Scott Satake, AHE Elections Chair, led the elections process for the AHE positions listed below.

Michelle Pearson has been nominated for the SFCC Board of Trustees Representative. Nominations were called for three times. Logan Amstadter motioned to close the nominations. Jeff Coffey seconded. The motion passed.

Christina Mitma-Momono has been nominated for SCC Extensions Board of Trustees Representative. Nominations were called for three times. Geoffrey Bagwell motioned to close the nominations. Greg Bem seconded. The motion passed.

Lena Lopez-Schindler has been nominated for Adjunct Representative. Nominations were called for three times. Bill Rambo motioned to close the nominations. Rob Vogel seconded. The motion passed.

Ronda Moorhead and Tim Roe have been nominated as co-secretaries. Nominations were called for three times. Cindy Deffe motioned to close the nominations. Barb Flock seconded. The motion passed.

Bill Rambo made a motion to accept the candidates for SFCC Board Rep, SCC Extensions Board Rep, Adjunct Rep, and co-secretaries by acclamation. Geoffrey Bagwell seconded. The motion passed.

Geoffrey Bagwell and Shawna Shelton have been nominated for treasurer. Bradley Hein motioned to close the nominations. Bobbi Carlson seconded. The motion passed.

Jason Eggerman and Jackie Franklin have been nominated for president. Nominations were called for three times. Bill Rambo motioned to close the nominations. Laura Kier seconded. The motion passed.

Ballots for the treasurer and president positions will be distributed via email. Please vote by Monday, May 19th.

Bev was recognized for her tenacity, advocacy for our students, and all her hard work. Thank you to Bev for all of her hard work and for the great shape that she is leaving AHE in as she moves back into the classroom. Sincerely, thank you to Bev for her hard work and her excellent leadership.

New Business

June Meeting Change

The June meeting will be on Wednesday, June 11, from 2-4 pm at the WEA Building (normal location).

Proposed AA-DTA Changes

Please attend the DTA meetings to share your thoughts, concerns, share feedback, and ask questions. Geoffrey Bagwell is collecting questions about the proposed DTA changes, so you can send him any questions that you have.

President’s and Vice Presidents’ Reports

AHE President Bev Daily:

The bias incident report will be going live soon. More will be coming out on this in June.

Bev has worked on revising the tenure handbook to improve the information we use to support our tenure committees and probationary faculty. There should be a new handbook to use in the fall that has updated information and forms. 

Our contracts are being mailed out for annually contracted faculty. Please sign and return your contract right away. 

The calendar for 2025-2026 has been updated with an MOU related to the Juneteenth holiday. As a reminder, grades are always due two days after the last finals day but are listed incorrectly on the calendars online.

There will be a department chair training on May 30 from 1:00-3:30 pm at the WEA Building. All new chairs should attend. Anyone interested in running for chair in the future is also welcome to attend, as well as current chairs who want to support the new chairs.

You can email Bev at beverly.daily@washingtonea.org   about WEA PAC if you are interested in it or have any questions about it. Any email about WEA PAC should only come from your personal email.

Bev needs more names for district committees. Please put your name in for a committee or two if you are not already on a committee.

SCC VP Jason Eggerman:

Vice-President Jacot has been named the permanent vice-president of instruction at SCC. There will likely be two dean searches in the fall for the Arts and Sciences Division, but we are waiting on the final word on that.

The new contract is nearly complete and will be printed later this spring.

There are brand new forms with the college logos rather than the district logo online. You can download new contract forms on the Spokane Colleges’ website. The following forms have been updated:

• Department Chair Evaluation (Will be labeled Appendix F in new contract)
• Instructions for Student Evaluations (Appendix B-2)
• Professional Improvement/Development Units Prof/Tech Certification Activities Report (Appendix I)
• Professional Development Plan (Appendix J)
• Student Evaluation Form (Will be labeled Appendix B-3A in new contract)
• Academic Employee Performance Appraisal Summary (Appendix C-2)
• Instructional Observation Form (Will be Appendix L-1 in new contract)
• Observation Form: Counselor Non-Instructional Work (Will be Appendix L-2 in new contract) NEW form coming July 1
• Observation Form: Librarians (Will be Appendix L-3 in new contract) NEW form coming July 1
• Associate Faculty Formal Evaluation (Formerly Appendix L-2, will now be L-4 in new contract)
• Probationary Report: Instruction (Appendix C-1A)
• Probationary Report: Counselor (Appendix C-1B)
• Probationary Report: Librarian (Appendix C-1C)

SCC Extension VP Rob Deyo:

As a reminder, deans are the supervisors of faculty. Deans make the decisions about hiring, class assignments, etc. Department chairs support faculty, but do not supervise faculty.

Email your AHE VPs about serving on committees by Friday. Please put your name in if you are not currently serving on any committees or if you are interested in one of the committees listed.

The vote for the AHE positions will go out right away and is due by Monday, May 19. 

SFCC VP Jackie Franklin:  

If you put your name forward for an operating committee and were not notified, email Jackie to let her know. If you are interested in governance, please email. If you are not willing to work on governance, please email Jackie at jackiefranklincpa@gmail.com to let her know why you do not want to participate in governance. Please send that from your personal email.

Adjunct Representative Lena Lopez Schindler:

All adjuncts should complete their two-year averaging form. On May 20th at 1 pm in the TLC at SCC there will be a training related to benefits, summer compensation, etc. that will be similar to the previous training held at SFCC. All adjuncts are encouraged to attend.