Recommendations Regarding New Spending

This phase of the planning cycle begins midyear with a meeting at which the president briefs the committee on any special projects that may be under consideration and any special requests or instructions that he/she may have for the committee.

Following the meeting with the president, the committee invites students, faculty, and staff to submit proposals for new spending in the next academic year. The committee has done so each spring semester since spring 1994. However, in spring 2003, mid-year reductions in state funding caused the committee to ask for suggestions regarding cost-saving measures and limited its review of proposals for new spending to those that addressed safety issues or conditions that, if not remedied, might undermine the college’s operations.

To be considered by the committee, proposals must include the College Goal that the proposal addresses, an explanation of how implementing the proposal will improve the College’s performance vis a vis that Goal, and the estimated cost of implementing the proposal. Proposals are screened to prevent duplicates and are prioritized by the appropriate dean or other administrator before they are forwarded to the committee.

The committee’s first task upon receipt of the proposals is to identify those that can be implemented with funds allocated to the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). In some cases proposals may contain items that can be funded by TAC (e.g. computers for a student lab) and items that require Planning Committee consideration (furniture for the student labs). In these cases, both committees may review the proposal.

The Planning Committee conducts hearings that provide the persons who submit proposals opportunities to explain them, speak for them, and answer committee member’s questions regarding them. These meetings, and all other meetings conducted by the committee, are open to students, faculty, and staff members.

Following the hearings phase of the process, the members of the committee tour the facilities, buildings, classrooms, and labs that are the subject of proposals.

The committee then ranks the proposals using a two-stage process. In the first stage of the process the proposals are sorted according to the College Goal that they address and are ranked according to the impact that their implementation is likely to have on the College’s performance vis a vis that Goal. In the second stage, the rankings by Goals are merged into an overall ranking. The overall ranking is done in a manner that preserves the first ranking.

After the committee has agreed on the overall ranking of proposals, it reviews the proposals a final time to see if there are any that address safety issues or conditions that, if not remedied, might undermine the college’s operations. Proposals that meet these criteria are noted separately in the committee’s report to the president.

The committee’s report regarding Recommendations for New Spending is sent to the president each year in late April or early May.