[Speaker 1] (0:18 - 0:21)
Need to remind everybody, turn your mics on before you speak.

[Speaker 21] (0:22 - 0:24)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Speaker 1] (0:24 - 0:39)
All right, thank you. I think you heard what I said to start with, right? Everybody heard?

All right, so we'll move on. First order of business is our invocation and pledge the United States flag and the Texas flag. Regent Weston Cotton will lead us.

[Speaker 17] (1:09 - 1:40)
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In honor of the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one indivisible.

[Speaker 1] (1:42 - 2:01)
Thank you very much. I know, I think our little guy here had a microphone when he was saying the pledge. Way to go, buddy.

All right, we're going to move right into one of the best parts of our meeting, that student spotlight.

[Speaker 4] (2:25 - 2:37)
So, Rio oversees our TRIO program, and so I just wanted to know if you let you know that if you ever think you might forget his name, just remember that Rio rhymes with TRIO. Please join us.

[Speaker 7] (3:15 - 3:20)
Testing, testing. I think, can you all hear me?

[Speaker 17] (3:20 - 3:21)
Yes.

[Speaker 7] (3:21 - 6:23)
Okay. Thank you. Again, my name is Rio Cummings.

I have the honor of serving as TRIO Director of Student Support Services here at Lee College. It is a privilege to stand before you today. First, I would like to recognize and thank the Lee College Board of Regents and President Dr. Linda Villanueva for your leadership and for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you about the vital work of TRIO Student Support Services. TRIO Student Support Services, or SSS, is one of the original federal TRIO programs established in the 1960s. For over 50 years, it has been a lifeline for students who are first generation from low-income backgrounds or who have documented disabilities. The goals have always been the same, to ensure that every student, regardless of circumstance, has the opportunity to succeed at higher education.

Here at Lee College, we sincerely appreciate the Board of Regents for your willingness to serve and to advocate for these students. Because of your unwavering commitment, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded Lee College a 1.3 million TRIO grant. This highly competitive federal grant will provide funding over the next five years, allowing us to expand the support we provide to students who need it the most.

Because of the past grant award, this summer, Lee College's TRIO Student Support Service was able to provide 10 participants and three chaperones with a cultural academic enrichment trip to this summer to Boston, Massachusetts. During the trip, students explored a diverse range of cultures, U.S. history, higher education institutions, local cuisines. They visited two universities, Boston College and Howard University, toured several museums, and experienced historic landmarks such as Boston Tea Party Ship Museum, Bunker Hill, the Old North Church, the Freedom Trail, Boston Commons, and the Boston Public Gardens.

For many participants, this experience was particularly meaningful as it included their first airplane flight and the first time traveling outside of Texas. This made the experience not only educational, but also deeply memorable. Students selected for this trip met established program criteria, which included maintaining a qualifying GPA, demonstrating active participation in TRIO activities throughout the year, and submitted a written essay as part of application process.

We originally had three students to come and present today to talk about the program. Only one showed up. The other two had some things that came up, but the students were Cynthia Campos, Ravel Perez, but here today we have Deja Ballard, who will talk just a little bit about the trip.

[Speaker 10] (6:41 - 9:23)
Good evening, everyone. My name is Deja Ballard, and I'm currently pursuing my Associate of Applied Science in Cybersecurity here at Lee. First, I would like to thank Lee College for providing us with the opportunity to experience an educational trip to Boston, and I would like to extend my gratitude to TRIO Student Support Services for all of the hard work and planning that they put into it and making sure that we were taken care of on our journey.

I chose to attend Lee College because it is close to home and offers numerous valuable resources for students. It will prepare me for my next steps in my journey, whether it be transferring to a four-year school or furthering my career. The trip to Boston had exposed me to academic opportunities, particularly through our visit to Harvard and Boston College.

Speaking with current students have given me insight on the many opportunities that they offer and the programs that they have. The trip has helped me, has also helped me gain confidence in being able to get out in the world by myself, even if it means I have to be by myself, and there is so much that I have yet to experience, and this trip has shown me that I can achieve great things that I have never thought were even possible for me. Some of the most memorable parts of the trip was getting to walk around Salem and exploring its historic mansions and buildings.

It rained on us, we got soaking wet, but we still enjoyed it. In visiting the USS Constitution ship and seeing the cannons that were used in the battle. Another highlight was connecting with the students here on campus that I've never met before, and they made the trip much more enjoyable.

So I would like to thank you all for the getting to have this experience. It has opened my eyes to new possibilities and has inspired me to aim even higher. I would like to sincerely thank Dr. Villanueva and all of the college board members for making an educational trip to Boston unforgettable. Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (9:29 - 9:43)
I just want to recognize you again, you wonderful, wonderful presentation, and just let you know that wherever you go when you said alone, you are never ever alone. Just know that, okay?

[Speaker 1] (10:31 - 10:53)
Is that it for trio, Dr. Villanueva? All right, next item on the agenda is kids at college. Is that next, right?

Come on.

[Speaker 4] (10:54 - 11:01)
I'd like to invite Marcia Toohoff, Executive Director of Workforce and Community Development.

[Speaker 11] (11:05 - 13:24)
Thank you, Dr. Villanueva, and good evening, Regents. It's a privilege to stand before you, whoops, hang on. Oh, thank you.

Thank you, I appreciate it. It's a privilege to stand before you tonight to celebrate a record-breaking summer for our kids at college program this year. We welcomed 857 campers, which is the highest enrollment in the program's history as far as as long as I've been at Lee College, and this more than doubled our previous record.

857 isn't just a record, it's a reflection of the trust our families place in us and the dedication of our team. But before we dive into highlights, I'd like to introduce two members of our incredible workforce and development team who, along with their hard-working colleagues, helped make this milestone possible. Jordan Smith stepped up as interim co-manager of the kids at college program, all while continuing her outstanding work with our senior travelers and our recreational programs.

Jordan's ability to easily wear multiple hats and her steady leadership, her genuine care for our students and family made all the difference. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have navigated the season without her partnership and positive spirit. Huda El-Tab joined our team in July right in the middle of the action, not chaos, action.

She didn't just observe, she absorbed, supported, and learned with enthusiasm. Huda's thoughtful presence and willingness to jump in wherever needed made a real difference, and I'm excited for you to see her passion in action. Tonight, you'll hear not just about our numbers, but about the real impact that of kids at college.

You'll hear directly from two of our campers, and you'll hear from a grandmother whose grandchildren attended while visiting her for summer. These stories capture the heart of what we do, creating joyful, meaningful, and affordable learning experiences for children and families in our community. Thank you for the support and believing in the power of learning through fun.

I'm honored to introduce Jordan and Huda, who are going to share more about our journey and the lives that we touched this year.

[Speaker 5] (13:32 - 17:08)
Thank you, Marsha, and thank you to everyone for allowing us to be here today and tell you about some of the amazing things we were able to accomplish through Kids at College this summer. So for those of you who may not know already, our Kids at College program primarily serves as a summer camp to offer engaging and educational camps for students from kindergarten all the way through 12th grades. Enrollment for these camps opened the day after spring break, and camps ran from the beginning of June through the end of July.

Not only do we offer camps here at main campus, we've also expanded to offering camps at the Liberty Center as well, which we're really excited about. So one of our biggest goals is to offer a wide range of offerings. This is to fit the diverse interests of the students and the families in our community.

So some of those camp offerings include classes like arts and crafts, and that's supported through amazing instructors in our arts department here on campus. We have summer reading courses with different fun engaging activities every week, science and engineering courses with some of our most popular camps being our mad scientist camp and our lego camp, and then of course a variety of sports camps, and those include basketball and volleyball camps, which actually serve as fundraisers for the athletics departments on here on campus. Aside from those, we have some camps that don't necessarily fit into those categories.

Some specialty programs such as cosmetology, gardening, and humane heroes, which was a really cool initiative we got to do this summer with the city of baytown animal shelter, and I think you'll hear a little bit more about that later. So as Marsha mentioned, this was a record-breaking summer for us. In fact, we doubled our enrollment from last year, and it's actually the highest enrollment we've had in the past decade.

So this is this is not an easy feat. It's done through a lot of teamwork, and it's really all all hands on deck throughout the summer, so we're really thankful to our whole department and other departments who have helped us contribute to make this a success. So as you can see here, here's a bit of a comparison from the last three years from 2023 to 2025.

You can see we had some steady growth, and then this year we definitely expanded more so than we thought was even possible through offering 81 camps and then having a total enrollment of 857 campers. So this data really highlights our success in offering more opportunities and supporting more children in our community. So one of the best ways we're able to support children in our community is through our scholarship program, and that is due to thanks from our Lee College Foundation.

So they grant us a certain amount of funds to award out to children, to serve them, and to hopefully get everyone availability and opportunities to come to camp, maybe come to more than one camp. So this year we were able to maximize on that, and we awarded 91 percent of those funds, that totaling to over 4,500 dollars in scholarships, and totaling 149 scholarships to students in our community. So this really allows us to ensure that our camps stay accessible, because that's ultimately the goal.

We want kids to be on campus. This is their first opportunity to maybe be on a college campus, and we want that to be a great impression. So with that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Huda, and she's going to introduce you to some of our amazing campers and parents and grandparents who were involved this summer.

[Speaker 6] (17:11 - 17:42)
Thank you, Jordan. So first up we have one of our superstars, Cody. Cody, do you want to come up?

Okay, Cody, you want to stand right here for me, please, so they can see you? So this is Cody. Cody, what was your favorite camp, and why was it your favorite camp?

Lego camp. Why was it your favorite camp? Because you could build things.

Can you tell us some of the awesome things that you got to build in Lego camp?

[Speaker 9] (17:43 - 17:45)
A dragon in a car.

[Speaker 6] (17:47 - 18:53)
Ooh, do you want to attend the camps again next year? Yes. Are you going to bring your friends with you?

Yes. All of them? Yes.

It's a yes. If you want to turn around and show everybody everything that you got to make in some of your other camps, I think they'd love to see that. I'll help you out a little bit right here.

You can turn around. You want to go this way? There you go.

So these are some of the cool things that Cody got to take home and make in some of the camps. Yeah, here, I'll hold that for you. So just to show everybody here, too.

And he got to take a picture, right? You want to tell them about that? No, it's okay.

He did get to take a couple of pictures that were memorable. So thank you, Cody. And next, we have Cody's mom, Savannah, to come up and talk about his experience.

Thank you, Cody. Why did you choose Kids at College Camps for Cody?

[Speaker 13] (18:54 - 19:32)
I was actually looking just here locally. I was searching camps daily. I'm part-time in life, and so I needed something that Cody could go to work with me and then also attend part-time during the day.

And then I looked at Baytown Recreational, and then this came up along on the site there, and I was like, oh, this is amazing. So the flexibility for him, the opportunities, and the biggest part was the age. The age cutoff for many camps locally weren't catered to kindergartners or kids coming into kindergarten.

So that was a huge benefit for us.

[Speaker 6] (19:33 - 19:40)
And you mentioned that Cody is in kindergarten, and so he did attend our kindergarten camp. And so how did that impact his first week of school?

[Speaker 13] (19:41 - 20:05)
I think that they focused a lot on the not being fearful when he went, to be brave. He came home every day telling me how brave he was ready to be. And then, too, I think that he just, he was prepared and with the knowledge, again, the structure that was provided, the teachers in front of him, how to be a student.

He also, that was one of the words, how to be the student and listen to the teacher, and that was very, very beneficial for him.

[Speaker 6] (20:05 - 20:15)
Well, I'm glad that it impacted him on his first week. So how did receiving a scholarship impact Cody's ability to attend the camps, and what would you say to other families who are thinking about applying for scholarships?

[Speaker 13] (20:16 - 20:44)
Well, first, whenever I came into the enrollment office, and that was shared with me, I was excited. There was me and another parent in there, and we both stopped, and we said, we can do what? And it, for us, in a chapter, in a moving chapter in our lives, it provided the opportunity to do more than one camp where I was budgeting weekly, trying to figure out which ones he could do.

It gave the opportunity to do multiple camps over the course, and so he got to attend four, actually, which was amazing.

[Speaker 6] (20:44 - 21:23)
Well, we're glad that he came to all of them, and we loved having Cody with us, so thank you, Savannah, and thank you, Cody. Everybody give him a round of applause. Next, we have Heather coming up.

So Heather, oh, sorry, my bad, I'm supposed to change that. So Heather is actually the grandparent of two of our campers who couldn't be with, be here with us today because they are from out of town, but she's here to present on their behalf and talk about their experience. So Heather, okay, perfect.

What made you choose kids at college camps for your grandchildren, given that they were from out of state?

[Speaker 12] (21:24 - 22:00)
I had taken, I was part of the senior trip stuff, and I did aquatics through Jordan and her team, you're part of her team, and so when my grandkids were scheduled to come out, I needed to have something for them to do, and being that I was already online with you guys, the algorithm found me on Facebook, and then I realized you guys were offering camps. So I came over, and I spoke with your staff, excellent response, and we booked four, two for Savannah and two for CJ that day.

[Speaker 6] (22:01 - 22:08)
We're so glad that they came too. What specific activities or experiences did they get to have, and what stood out to them?

[Speaker 12] (22:09 - 22:48)
So CJ did the clay creations, which was lots of fun. He also did the photography, which he enjoyed more so because he was, he is an average photographer. Savannah did the young aviators.

Being nine years old, she wants to fly. I'm going to help her get, you know, get her there. So besides watching the Mission Impossible movie, which was excellent, you know, Tom Cruise and him flying, she loved that, and then she did the all sports.

Ultimately, the flying for Savannah and the clay creations for CJ was their big takeaways. They loved that.

[Speaker 6] (22:49 - 22:53)
Great, and what value do you see in having camps like Kids at College available in the community?

[Speaker 12] (22:56 - 23:42)
On so many levels, I wrote down the answer. The socialization aspect of it, meeting other kids. Savannah and CJ are here for the summer.

They didn't have any friends here, per se. They had some friends, and they have pen pals now in Texas, and they're in, you know, Arizona. The exposure to a college environment, that's a biggie.

CJ is going to be 15, and he's going to be in college in a minute. So, you know, not necessarily here, but this is an introduction. And new ideas and concepts.

You know, you've got to introduce them to everything, and they're going to have to run with it. So that's my job. I introduce them to things besides their mom and dad, you know, so.

[Speaker 6] (23:44 - 24:12)
Well, I think impact comes in different ways, and so I'm glad that we got to do that with Kids at College for them. So thank you so much, everybody. Thank you for Heather.

And then finally, our last superstar, we have Ava. You want to come up here? I'm going to have you take this.

So what camps did you attend? And what made you choose them?

[Speaker 16] (24:13 - 24:29)
I attended cosmetology, human heroes, and hair braiding, is it called that? Yeah. And I did those because I really enjoy those, and they're just kind of, like, hobbies I do.

[Speaker 6] (24:29 - 24:35)
Great. And what was some of, like, the coolest things that you learned while you were doing hair braiding or cosmetology camp?

[Speaker 16] (24:36 - 24:55)
I learned new, like, techniques, like how to braid hair, how to, like, straighten my own hair, and I learned just to have more of an addiction with animals, and I asked my mom if I could have some, and she said no.

[Speaker 6] (24:56 - 25:05)
That's okay, but you can always come back to our camps, and we will always take you to humane heroes to go and have some, okay? Are you practicing any of the hair braiding?

[Speaker 16] (25:05 - 25:11)
Yes, I'm actually practicing with my mom. It's kind of hard. It's kind of hard?

Because she keeps moving.

[Speaker 6] (25:11 - 25:20)
Gotcha. So what I'm hearing is mom needs to bring you back next year, that's what I think. So how did helping in the shelter during humane heroes make you feel?

[Speaker 16] (25:21 - 25:26)
Made me feel good. It felt like I was helping out the community and having fun at the same time.

[Speaker 6] (25:27 - 25:31)
Great. What did you learn from working with the animals in the shelter specifically?

[Speaker 16] (25:33 - 25:41)
I learned how to take care of animals and just treat them in, like, a kind way.

[Speaker 6] (25:41 - 26:13)
That's good. I'm glad. And your friends that you have, what would you tell them, you know, if they were thinking about attending Kids at College?

Absolutely, absolutely go. Great. You and Cody, you're bringing all your friends, right?

Yes. Well, thank you so much, Ava, and can you guys give her a round of applause? We're gonna have you guys kind of all come up so we can present you with a certificate.

[Speaker 17] (28:19 - 28:38)
Okay, great.

[Speaker 1] (28:41 - 29:38)
Do we have any more student spotlights? We can just go all night with that kind of stuff. That's great.

All right, thank you very much. Bye. All right, moving on to disposition of minutes.

We have before us special board meeting, virtual August 12th, 2025. Building committee meeting August 20th, 2025. Special board meeting and tour August 20th, 2025.

Public hearing fiscal year 25-26 budget August 21st, 2025. Board meeting August 21st, 2025 and policy committee meeting August 26th, 2025. Anyone who's taking approval?

I'll take a second. We got a motion from Regent Codd and a second from Regent Warford. Any comments or corrections or anything on the minutes?

Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Any opposed, no.

[Speaker 9] (29:39 - 29:39)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (29:40 - 30:32)
Got a unanimous. There we go. All right.

All those minutes I just mentioned are now approved. Move to report of the chairman. I do have a short report this evening.

I just want to share that the Community College Association of Texas Trustees Annual Conference was held in Austin this past weekend. It's always a great time to listen to what our colleagues across the state are doing in terms of challenges and successes. Breakout sessions are informative, and the opportunity to collaborate with fellow regents and trustees is always beneficial.

I want to thank David Momen for being part of a fairly new addition to the conference, and that is the importance of the board liaison position. David was the presenter for a session that was well attended, and I'm proud Lee College was represented well. Thank you, David.

Any comments, general comments from anyone who was there? Just snip it.

[Speaker 4] (30:35 - 30:38)
Is it safe to announce where the next one's going to be held? Would you like to?

[Speaker 1] (30:38 - 30:47)
What was announced at the end of our conference was the 2026 CAT Annual Conference will be at the Hyatt in Baytown.

[Speaker 4] (30:50 - 30:52)
Jacob's smelling money, I can tell already.

[Speaker 1] (30:52 - 31:45)
Will not have to travel far, but yes, it was announced at the end of the conference, and I think, yeah, so it's good. I've already had conversations with the manager of the Hyatt, and they're aware, and they're preparing, and I wasn't going to make any announcements, but I think that, you know, this is a little different than going to a hotel in Austin. There are many hotels in Austin or Houston or anywhere else we've been, but the Hyatt in Baytown is Baytown, so I'm going to ask Dr. Villanueva to work with our city manager and provide some sort of city welcome as part of that event, get with the CAT folks and see if we can work that in. It's not our conference. We're not hosting, but it's in our town, right, so we'll start talking about those kind of things, all right. Mr. Chairman, you asked for comments.

[Speaker 3] (31:45 - 32:11)
I thought it was very informative this year, and one of our own former employees, Christy Ponce, did an excellent presentation on Saturday morning, and so I think that we as a college community here at Lee College trained her well, and she's president of Temple College, and she gave a wonderful presentation about the changes, and there are considerable amount of changes that have taken place there, and so I guess we can be proud for her and proud of her coming through here.

[Speaker 1] (32:12 - 32:58)
We certainly can, and one of her vice presidents also came through here, Dede Griffith, so you know, Lee College has been a great nurturing environment for a lot of folks who have gone on and been successful, so yeah, it is proud to have that connection with other CEOs and their staff around the state. Actually, that's not the I was going to share a quick story, but I'm not, so let me move on. Next week, the foundation gala is a little teaser.

[Speaker 4] (32:59 - 33:00)
They're like, why would you do that?

[Speaker 1] (33:00 - 34:14)
September 26th. Okay, I'm going to share a little story, so this is just about the challenges that we all face and how they're different and how you can come up with different solutions. One of the challenges that some of our rural community colleges face is how to provide dual credit instruction to high school students who may be an hour and a half away from the campus when they need to come to the campus.

One of the ISDs solved the problem. They had students on a bus for an hour and a half, so what they did, they equipped the buses with Wi-Fi, and they included that hour and a half transportation time as a block of instruction in the high school day, right? Now, that's being innovative, right?

You solve the problem. They're going to be on a bus. It could either be homework time, study time, or an actual class, so those are just the kind of way we hear, you know, we don't have so much that that same problem here, but that's just how innovative we should be thinking in solving the challenges that we have, so that's one of the benefits that, you know, everything we hear may not fit us, but it makes us think about what we have and what we're doing, so that's just one little story I wanted to share. Okay, I did mention the foundation gala is next week, September 26th.

[Speaker 4] (34:14 - 34:18)
Would you like to have an update on the gala challenge?

[Speaker 1] (34:18 - 34:20)
Do we have an update on the gala challenge?

[Speaker 4] (34:20 - 34:29)
I do believe we do. Selah, would you like to share it, or I can just tell you that right now that cabinet is up by about $2,500 right now.

[Speaker 1] (34:30 - 34:41)
Okay, well, it's kind of like an auction right before it's over, right? Still have a week. Huh?

Still have a week. There's a lot of game left. That's right.

No, no worries there.

[Speaker 14] (34:41 - 34:42)
How many cabinet members?

[Speaker 4] (34:44 - 34:49)
Just three of us, I think. I'm kidding. 15.

[Speaker 1] (34:50 - 34:51)
All right. Pulled out numbers. That's okay.

[Speaker 4] (34:52 - 34:58)
But remember, there's two requirements, right? One is 100 participation, and the other is just the amount raised.

[Speaker 1] (34:59 - 36:10)
All right. Game on again. Okay, one last thing.

Regent Warford and I attended the Gulf Coast Industry Forum this morning at the Pasadena Convention Center with several other college folks. The event focuses on the growing needs of industry in our area and the region, planned expansions, workforce challenges, and the overall dynamics of the importance of collaboration required by the federal government all the way to the residential neighbors in our communities. I'm going to say this.

I'm proud of what San Jacinto College is doing for their service area industry partners working collectively to solve problems, and the reason I'm proud is because that's why we're all here. That's why we are here as community colleges to solve those problems, and Lee College has always worked collaboratively with our industry partners, and I'm looking forward to how we can continue to grow that relationship in the near future. And the last item is women's volleyball is happening now.

Some of us want to go. Some of us may have made it. I showed up.

The teams didn't, but I'm counting it as an attempt. The next women's volleyball game is next Tuesday, September 23rd for anyone who's interested. That's all I have, so I'm going to move on to the building committee report.

[Speaker 15] (36:11 - 36:47)
Yes, Mr. Chairman. We met yesterday. We got an update on ongoing projects.

There were no agenda items to review, and we received a very good update on the facilities master plan activities. They are moving through the indexing of the facilities condition assessment, and we should have a report coming very soon to the entire board at an upcoming meeting, so progressing along nicely. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1] (36:47 - 36:55)
Any questions for Regent Patnoe? Move to policy committee report.

[Speaker 3] (36:55 - 38:44)
Yes, Mr. Chairman. The policy committee met on August the 26th and discussed a lengthy list of TASB, called the TASB update 49, which included, I'll just rattle through these because most of them are on our agenda, the CF or CGF and CHA, which has to do with our security services and so forth, and one of the policies is eliminated and rolled into the other. DIAB, which is discrimination and harassment and retaliation, some minor changes there.

The EEC local, which is instruction arrangements, course loads, and so forth like that, what's considered a full load, changes there. FFDB, which is the freedom from discrimination and false reports, there's been some additions to that policy and language changes, and the FLBC local, which is anti-student hazing and student conduct issues that are included in the packet. We also had some policy updates that are local.

One is, and I'm going to say something about this one, is the capitalization threshold for purposes of classifying individual capital assets, if we're buying capital assets, and we've raised that individual item to $10,000 just to reduce the lengthy list, if I'm correct, is that, and then also the capital, the group assets has been raised to $150,000, so if it's less than $150,000 investment, it won't be capitalized, is that correct, but rather expensed. Well, you can address it later or address it now.

[Speaker 2] (38:46 - 39:41)
So when we're talking about the group capitalization threshold, we're talking about groups of assets when collectively tallied together, they have to exceed $150,000 before we capitalize it, otherwise we expend it. So if we're talking about furniture, for example, the individual pieces don't cost more than $10,000, but if we spend more than $150,000, in the year, then as a collective purchase, we would capitalize that, and that's a recent GASB change that we implemented last year and are modifying that as the state modifies their instruction, just as we modified the individual capitalization threshold to align with federal changes in their capitalization threshold. So we're reacting to changes by both the federal and state governments with these changes.

[Speaker 3] (39:42 - 40:24)
Okay, and you may want to stay up there. The other one was purchasing and acquisition. We basically doubled the thresholds for having one quote from 25 to 50, and three quotes are required for purchases from 50 to 100,000, and 100,000 or more we require bids, and these are all a doubling of those thresholds to reflect inflationary costs that have crept into the system, and that's all I have to report.

Most of these revisions will be voted on tonight with the exception of the security services. We had some questions and possible language change. We'll bring that up at the next meeting.

[Speaker 1] (40:25 - 40:37)
All right, thank you very much. Any other questions for Regent Hall? All right, next item will be the Audit Investment Committee.

I believe Regent Hemsel via phone or Zoom is making that report. Is that correct?

[Speaker 9] (40:39 - 43:10)
Yes, sir. Thank you, Chairman Santana. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. Okay, the Audit Investment Committee met September the 2nd to review the fiscal year 2025 internal audit outcomes and to discuss ongoing and upcoming audits for fiscal year 2026. Under FY 2025 audit overview, seven final audit deliverables were completed with 41 issues documented, leading to 49 action plans and four risk acceptances.

Some IT-related action plans missed completion dates due to upgrade challenges. The IT Department will be addressing these issues through the end of this year. Under specific audit reports, the grant discovery and management system audit is suspended pending the vendor's own system and organizational controls assessment.

Also, the Athletics Department will be updating its policy and procedure manual by November. Under FY 2026 audit schedule, audits carried over from FY 2025 include the ERP replacements, data center co-location and cybersecurity, along with audits covering content management and records retention, policy and procedure governance, contract management, cash management, receiving, shipping, and surplus, asset management, Empirical Education Center, the EEC, and then the Performing Arts Center.

The process for selection of a new ERP solution to replace PeopleSoft is targeted for completion by December, with implementation to begin in January. And finally, administrative regulation draft, a proposed regulation to establish consistent risk and control definitions and reporting standards is under development, intended for eventual approval by the full board. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.

[Speaker 1] (43:12 - 43:21)
Very much, Regent Hemsel. Any questions for Regent Hemsel? All right, thank you very much.

Next item on the agenda is report of the President. Dr. Villanueva.

[Speaker 4] (43:22 - 47:19)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, last month I shared with the board that I was cautiously optimistic that we would have our highest enrollment ever for the fourth consecutive year. I was not only cautiously optimistic, but I stated to others that barring some major event, this would be the case.

We encountered that event, and it's probably because I forgot to knock on wood. So, let me share the details. First, where we ended.

Our overall enrollment is flat compared to last year. And when I say flat, it is literally a difference in 13 students, or one-tenth of one percent less than last year. So, that's about as flat as you, when you round it, it was literally zero percent, right?

When we round it, round it down to zero percent. So, second, the major event. So, the loss was due to 186 expected enrollments from the Huntsville Center.

So, the process of approving Huntsville enrollment students was previously conducted by, directly by TDCJ. And that responsibility was transferred to the Windham School District just recently. So, in them taking it over, this approval process was delayed.

We didn't have any control over this, but that resulted in the loss of 186 students, which for sure would have resulted in that record enrollment, but it didn't. And it would also have put us well above, well, it would have put us above 9,000, which would have been the first time in our history. So, but there's, there are some good things, and one of them that I wanted to highlight is that the enrollment at our main campus was up by four percent when we ended.

And this was twice as it grew from fall 23 to 24. And finally, fourth, while record enrollments are always nice to report, I think I've said this many times, that I am much prouder of the efforts of our team to ensure that as many students as possible are enrolled for the purpose of improving the quality of their lives. And so, we have the very best team in place, and that is what I am most proud of, and I know that you guys would all agree with that.

So, next time, if someone would just remind me to knock on wood, I will do that, and things will go better. Next, I wanted to share a note from our Chief of Police, who I think is out there somewhere, Eric Williams, regarding our security enhancements with the and I wanted to read this directly as he wrote it. Yeah, he's coming in.

So, Chief, come on out, because I got your permission to do this, so I want to make sure I get it right. So, he said, and I quote, I wanted to take a moment to thank our Board of Regents for the support and latitude given to us to do our jobs and make a difference. We were informed that the, quote, trilogy, end quote, camera upgrades, alert cards, and license plate readers we implemented in our security enhancement plan placed us in a rare position.

Lee College is the first and only institution of higher learning in the state of Texas that has utilized all three strategies for safety and security. We were told by manufacturers that their clients are inquiring about our setup and said we are trailblazers, and the demand from their clients is that they follow our lead. So, again, I want to thank the board.

This is him. Thank the board for allowing us to lead and keep our campus safe for all.

[Speaker 1] (47:20 - 47:21)
Thank you, Chief.

[Speaker 4] (47:26 - 49:11)
So, finally, I want to leave us with some information that you may have heard about in the news, and that is the Department of Education ordered the termination of more than one-third of a billion dollars in discretionary funds, spending that had been appropriated for Hispanic-serving institutions and other minority-serving institutions. You may recall that Lee College is a Hispanic-serving institution. We are not any longer, nor is any other.

This designation allowed us and 601 other institutions in the nation to receive federal funding to expand educational opportunities for Hispanic and low-income students. We were one of 111 institutions in Texas that were HSIs, and to qualify, institutions must have been accredited and degree-granting, but also have an undergraduate full-time equivalent enrollment that is at least 25% Hispanic. Lee College over the years has received multiple, multiple millions of funding under this designation.

Right now, we have one grant under this category that is ending with $150,000 remaining. So, while this practically means that we have lost a funding source for revenue that we are no longer able to receive, I can speak confidently on our team of 10 that this change will not in any way deter our mission to serve our students with the best educational support services they need to succeed. That concludes my report.

[Speaker 1] (49:13 - 49:17)
Thank you. That reaffirmation. Any questions for Dr. Villanueva?

I have a comment.

[Speaker 3] (49:18 - 49:23)
I'll count the 4% growth rate on our campus as a win, regardless, because we don't have a lot of control.

[Speaker 4] (49:23 - 49:36)
Well, and let's also just be happy about the kids at college enrollment. I mean, doubling that, right, and being the highest in over a decade, I'm, wherever it comes from, we're very proud. Thank you.

[Speaker 15] (49:36 - 49:43)
I have a question regarding the loss of revenue. Was that revenue included in the budget?

[Speaker 4] (49:45 - 49:54)
The $150,000, it was. So, we're not 100% sure at this point whether or not we'll be able to receive that money, but it's included.

[Speaker 1] (49:58 - 50:07)
Comments or questions? Thank you. We'll move to informational reports.

We'll start with report of Lee College resignations and or retirements. Dr. Villanueva.

[Speaker 4] (50:07 - 50:10)
One resignation, Mandy Jordan, faculty in speech.

[Speaker 1] (50:14 - 50:21)
Next, we'll move to our financial report. Mr. Atkin, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance. Always glad to hear from you.

[Speaker 2] (50:33 - 57:01)
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening. So, this report tallies all of the activity through the end of August.

And while that is technically the end of the fiscal year, this does not represent the final financial position. We have post-closing entries. There's activity that takes place in September that really applies and is accounted for in August.

And so, this is a reflection of where we were at 831. But when we finish our audit and we complete our final report, we will give you a final update once all of the closing entries have been completed and audited. So, with that qualifier in place, you can see here that from a cash perspective, we have $17 million in our operating funds with $43 million in our restricted, if you include the land held for investment, and another $8 million in our other funds, which are essentially all tied to and planned to be used for capital improvement projects.

In terms of our financial activity, we have essentially collected all of the revenue that we're going to collect. So, that part of this report is very close to final. The expenses are where we will see other transactions that still need to post and have not yet as of the creation of this report.

As you can see, our total revenue collected was a little over what we had budgeted for the year, which is quite an accomplishment considering we knew that when we cut the tax rate that that was going to automatically result in less revenue collected. So, while we were short $1.5 million in district taxes, we made up for that with exceptional performance in tuition and fees, as well as strong performance in our other local income. And so, keep in mind as we're talking later about surpluses or expected surpluses from this year, this was a good revenue year for us with regard to the revenues that we more directly control as an institution.

From an expense perspective, salaries came in under, which has been fairly typical as an institution for the past several years. And of course, the biggest variance is within our operating account, and I'll talk a little bit more about the detail with regard to that account in a few minutes, in a few minutes being right now. So, right now, you can see that based on the data as of 8-31, we could experience a surplus of up to $8 million.

So, some of that, it won't be $8 million, right? So, for example, in this equipment line item, we have a million dollars of charges that posted in September from work that was done in August. So, we have some corrections to this that are going to post.

Should be less than $7 million, somewhere between $6 and $7 million will be our total surplus. I would also like to point out that during our budgeting process for the next fiscal year, some of these built-in surpluses have been removed from our budget. So, for example, on our salaries and benefits, we budgeted for a variance for that at 8% instead of 5%.

And so, we do not expect to have a large surplus in salaries and benefits at the end of this upcoming year. We also eliminated the contingency for fast funding for the next fiscal year. We reduced the regular contingency from $1 million to $500,000.

And so, if you take those three factors into consideration, that's $3.5 million of the $6 to $7 million that we have left this year. So, as we gear up for other discussions later today, while we will have between $6 and $7 million left in surplus this year, we are working hard from an administrative perspective to be much more precise with the use of our funds compared to our budget in the future. With regard to our capital projects, you can see that we still have quite a bit of work left to do in some of these categories.

But in August, we completed a tremendous amount of work on the cosmetology project. We started some of the furniture and equipment replacement. And we did a little bit of work on ADA Phase 2.

With regard to our restricted funds, you can see that our expenses have exceeded revenues by $616,000. This, as always, works on a reimbursement basis. Our present concerns with regard to our grant funds is there's what the legislature passes, and then there's what administration authorizes.

We've already received notices that on some of these federally funded programs that the reimbursements are being delayed. And so, we are acting in good faith that what's been awarded to us will be paid out. The federal government has issued notices that some of this is going to be delayed for a month.

But the Trump administration has issued notices to other colleges that their funding has simply been canceled. And so, we are trying to be mindful that while we're maintaining these programs, and as long as we're getting notice that we're going to receive funds from the federal government, we're going to move forward until we're notified that they're officially canceled. But we are more uneasy than we've probably ever been with regard to our grants and contracts funds because the rules seem to have changed, right?

It's not about what's been approved by the legislature, but it's more about what the current administration is willing to actually honor and fund in the current year. So, with that, are there any questions on the financials as of the end of August?

[Speaker 1] (57:01 - 57:24)
Questions for Jacob? Comments? Much?

Always easier to tell us that we have money left over than we didn't have enough, right? All right, we'll move on to public comment. Do we have anyone sign up to speak?

[Speaker 21] (57:24 - 57:25)
We have Mr. David Isaac.

[Speaker 1] (57:26 - 57:29)
All right, thank you. Isaac, good to see you.

[Speaker 8] (57:32 - 1:00:39)
Good to see you too, Mr. Chairman. Oh, we're starting already. Okay, well, let's talk about how a couple of months ago I came here over the summer, discussed how Mr. Dave Rogers, editor of the Baytown Sun, disgraced this city by allowing to take phone calls from one of your regions that includes, but isn't limited to, Mr. Mark Hall. Let's talk about why it was fired, but before I get there, I want to establish what my mandate is tonight and what I'm asking for. I'm asking for a robust student newspaper. We abolished that 30 years ago.

There is no right to speak the way students want to speak here on campus. We need to video record these meetings. If you're going to raise taxes, we'll get there to that in a minute.

People need to see it. People need to see that video recorded. We need to investigate former things that happened here on this campus.

We had former regents go on trips with architects we still do business with. We had a treasurer who committed misfeasance, malfeasance here on campus. I still don't know the end of it.

We need ethics here on this campus. We need a committee. We need to hold our elected officials accountable.

That includes those sitting on this seat calling the Baytown Sun, getting them fired. A couple, about a week ago, something happened to a famous speaker, another famous not me, where his speech was limited to this chamber under Mr. Mark Hall, limited my speech on multiple occasions. How?

Well, it kicked me out of here when this school hired a sex offender and they were dismissed and I spoke about it passionately. Wouldn't even look me in the eye, like right now. And that's good because it's not Halloween.

And even if it was, I'd have no candy for him. Took away video recording when he didn't like what I had to say in March of 2001 the next month. Then when I said something about the sex offender, you kicked me out of here.

That's two times. And the third time, strike three, is when the Baytown Sun was contacted by Mark Hall to erase, erase a fact that I got more votes than Mr. Hunter Hall. Now, why would Mr. Mark Hall want to erase Hunter Hall's legacy?

Why? Is that because Mr. Hunter Hall called him a liar, a liar that disparaged the transgender community right here behind the dais? I don't know what he said about the transgender community, a liar that stole from him.

He said he was a liar that was a crappy father, a liar that hired illegal immigrants for his company. That also needs to be investigated. I don't appreciate how Hall's carpet company went out of business, was sold and they can't make money anymore.

Why? Maybe they don't have any backdoor government contracts. Tired of playing around.

I had a meeting with the president two times. My meeting was canceled. There's people complaining right now in City Hall can't get a ride to Lee College because the funding was cut here first and it was passed when I was student body president here in 2009, the Harris County transit system.

They're $150,000 short. Y'all making hand over fist. Y'all got money to keep that bus system going.

That's all I got to say today. I'll be back next month.

[Speaker 3] (1:00:40 - 1:00:45)
Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I've got to address that and I know we're not supposed to.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:45 - 1:00:50)
I understand. I feel your sympathy there. I'm not sure what all that had to do with our agenda.

[Speaker 3] (1:00:51 - 1:00:56)
It has nothing. It has nothing to do with our agenda and the speaker is supposed to address the issues.

[Speaker 8] (1:00:57 - 1:00:59)
I know the speaker's supposed to have a public comment, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:00:59 - 1:01:02)
Typically public comment on the items on the agenda.

[Speaker 8] (1:01:02 - 1:01:09)
No, but I will stay in Texas. We're supposed to we actually you're supposed to let us comment on every agenda item. Public comment is free, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:01:09 - 1:01:25)
So yeah, so I'm trying to not have this conversation here. We will have a conversation later. Maybe you can educate me on on this item.

Yeah, we'll we'll we'll I'll get with you later.

[Speaker 3] (1:01:26 - 1:01:55)
Let's uh I understand the motion that's going on but I'll just I just want to comment that most that most of what he said I have no idea what he's talking about nor does he. So I'll leave it at that. You know he's he's come in here and publicly publicly insulted a number of our board members over the years but this seems to go to a new level and I'll just say as a former chair you were yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:57 - 1:02:56)
I'll move on please. I'm going to ask that we suspend this conversation. I just want to note an objection.

Yes, that is noted. I certainly appreciate that. So all right.

We're going to move on to the next agenda item which is our consent agenda and uh see consideration of new hires. The administration recommends that the board approve the new hires as presented below. We have Mr. Cody Burris academic advisor and Mr. Adam Flores academic advisor. Second. Got a motion from uh Regent Guillory and uh in stereo. I'm going to go with Regent Fontenot.

Did I hear you right? I hear better from my right ear. All right.

We have motion and a second on these two items. These two personnel. Any any discussion on this item?

Hearing none. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed no. Aye.

[Speaker 22] (1:02:56 - 1:02:56)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:57 - 1:16:56)
Thank you. Motion is approved. We'll move on to new business.

I'm going to read this item but before anyone makes a motion I'm going to ask for the pause. All right. This item is consideration of a resolution authorizing the establishment and ratification of the faculty assembly in accordance with Senate Bill 37 of the 89th Texas legislative session.

The administration recommends that the board adopt this resolution. Before we move to that motion I would like to take a minute or three and actually read this resolution so that it's recorded and we're clear on what this resolution is. How am I drink water now?

So is it going to be a long one? All right. What we Resolution authorizing the establishment and ratification of the Lee College Faculty Assembly.

Whereas during the 89th Texas legislative session in 2025 the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 37 which was subsequently signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott on June 20, 2025. Whereas Senate Bill 37 relates to the governance of public institutions of higher education including review of curriculum and certain degree and certificate programs a faculty council or senate trained for members of the governing board and establishment powers and duties of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Office Board Office of the Ombudsman. Whereas Senate Bill 37 in section 51.3522 of the Texas Education Code authorizes the governing board of an institution of higher education to establish a faculty assembly and sets forth the policy by which the assembly's members will be selected. Whereas the Board of Regents of Lee College adopts the following policies in accordance with section 51.3522 of the Texas Education Code. One the faculty assembly must adequately represent all teaching and non-teaching full-time and part-time faculty and a require the members to be full-time faculty be limit the number of members to no more than 60 no more than 60 including the lie five members appointed by the president of the college one member who primarily teaches academic or transfer courses on the main campus one member who primarily teaches technical not for transfer courses on the main campus one librarian one counselor and one member who teaches primarily in the prison prison education program and the remaining members elected by a vote of the full-time faculty. Two the faculty assembly is advisory only and may not be delegated the final decision-making authority on any matter.

Three the faculty assembly shall represent the entire faculty of Lee College and advise the administration regarding matters related to the general welfare of the institution. Four the faculty assembly may not issue any statement or publish a report using the institution's official seal trademark or resources funded by the institution on any matter not directly related to the faculty assembly's duties to advise the institution's administration. Five service on the faculty assembly is an additional duty of the faculty members employment members of the faculty assembly are not entitled to compensation or reimbursement of expenses for their role as members of the faculty assembly unless the expense is on behalf of and approved by the institution of higher education.

Six a member of the faculty assembly appointed by the chief executive officer of the college in accordance with section 1 b i may serve up to six consecutive one-year terms and then may be only reappointed after the second anniversary of the last day of the member's most recent term. A member of the faculty assembly elected by a vote of the faculty serves a two-year term staggered in manners that allows approximately one half of the elected members to be elected each year and may only be re-elected after the second anniversary of the last day of the member's most recent term. Seven a faculty member serving on the faculty assembly may be immediately removed from the assembly for failing to conduct the member's responsibilities within the assembly's parameters failing to attend assembly meetings or engaging in other similar misconduct.

A member of the faculty assembly may be removed on the recommendation of the institution's provost or equivalent of the institution's chief academic officer and approval by the chief executive officer of the institution. Eight the chief executive officer of lee college shall appoint a faculty assembly president vice president and secretary from the members of the faculty assembly. The presiding officer of the faculty assembly shall preside over meetings of the faculty assembly and represent the assembly and official communications with the institution's administration.

The faculty assembly shall conduct meetings at which a quorum is present in a manner that is open to the public and in accordance with procedures prescribed by the chief executive officer of the college. Eleven the faculty assembly shall broadcast over the internet live video and audio as applicable of each open meeting of the faculty assembly if more than 50 percent of members of the assembly are in attendance. Twelve the faculty assembly shall adopt rules for establishing a quorum.

Thirteen the faculty the following shall be made available to the public on the lee college internet website not later than the seventh day before a meeting of the faculty assembly. A an agenda for the meeting with sufficient detail to indicate the items that are to be discussed or that will be subject to a vote and B any curriculum proposals reviewed by the assembly that will be discussed or voted on at the meeting. Fourteen the names of the members in attendance must be recorded at a meeting in which the faculty assembly conducts business related to A a vote of no confidence regarding an institution administrator or B policies related to the curriculum and academic standards.

Fifteen the policies may not be construed to limit a faculty member of lee college from exercising the faculty member's right to freedom of association protected by the united states constitution or the texas constitution. Therefore be it resolved the board of regents of lee college officially ratifies the establishment of the lee college faculty assembly adopts the policies governing the the faculty assembly and finds that the faculty assembly meets the policies adopted by the board and the requirements of section 51.3522 of the texas education code. Be it further resolved that this resolution be included in the permanent minutes of this board should this pass with a motion a second a motion second and a vote it will be adopted this 18th day of september 2025 by the board of regents of lee college.

Here we go so I'll go back to our agenda item that our resolution authorizing the establishment ratification of the faculty assembly in accordance with senate bill 37 of the 89th legislative session the administration recommends that the board adopt this resolution motion motion regional warford a second from regent hall are any comments or discussion on this item yes I explained it clearly hearing none all in favor say aye aye opposed no got it unanimous uh resolution is approved thank you okay next item on the agenda policy adoption let's see consideration of adoption of board policy revisions for local policies the administration and board policy committee recommend that the board approve and adopt the revisions to the local board policies as presented and recommended by the texas association of school boards update 49 and two other policies let me just uh is there anything I need to all right everybody's look this item don't move second got a motion region hall and a second from regent cotton any discussion on any of these items all in favor say aye aye any opposed no right we got the motion is approved thank you hesitate next item consideration of redundant firewalls upgrade with solid border incorporated the administration recommends that the board authorize the president or her designee to negotiate final terms and approve a contract with solid border incorporated in the amount of one hundred twenty four thousand three hundred thirty seven dollars and twenty three cents second had a motion from regent gillory and the second was from regent cotton any uh discussion on this item all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed no all right motion is approved consideration of oracle people soft perpetual license verification form the administration recommends that the board authorize the president or her designee to negotiate final terms and approve the amount of one hundred fifteen thousand three hundred twenty six dollars fifty eight cents to oracle america incorporated got a motion from regent warford second region fontano any discussion on this item hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed no all right motion approved next item consideration of oracle people soft license and technical support services the administration recommends that the board authorize the president her designee to negotiate final terms and approve the annual oracle people soft support contract in the amount of two hundred and one thousand nine hundred sixty four dollars and fifty nine cents oh second got a motion from regent gillory and a second from regent cotton waiting for any other okay all right any discussion on this item all right hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed no motions approved all in favor say aye aye all opposed the motion is approved next item consideration of professional services contract with global source the administration recommends that the board authorize the president or her designee to negotiate final terms and approve the contract with global source for people soft consulting services for an annual amount not to exceed two hundred and ninety five thousand dollars no move motion regent warford second region cotton session on this item none all in favor say aye opposed no opposed no motions approved all in favor say aye aye all opposed no motions are approve the contract with global source for people soft consulting services for an annual amount not to exceed two hundred and ninety five thousand dollars no move motion regent warford second region cotton session on this item motion for a proposed tax rate and setting date for a public meeting to approve the contract with global source for people soft consulting services for an annual amount not to exceed two hundred and ninety five thousand dollars no move motion for a proposed tax rate and setting date for a public meeting to approve the contract with global source for people soft adopt tax rate for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. The administration recommends, in accordance with current legislation, that the Board propose, by recorded vote, the 2025 proposed tax rate for the 2025-2026 fiscal year and set the date for a public meeting for adoption of the proposed 2025-2026 tax rate. I have a motion for Regent Warford.

Second. Second from Regent Fontenot. At this time, would you like to give us some information on this item, please?

I was going to read the detail, but you're a little more eloquent. I am.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:59 - 1:23:19)
I'm not sure that anybody actually believes that. So, some background information on the process and then some detail regarding our current situation. First, as we get ready to set the rate, we have to calculate two figures.

First, we have to calculate the no new revenue rate, and in simplified basic terms, the no new revenue rate is the tax rate that would be needed in order to generate the same revenue in the current year that we generated in the prior year based on the current year valuations. However, as you can see, that calculation is not quite as straightforward. First, we have to look at prior year levies plus refunds from years prior to last year.

As you know, there are taxpayers who don't pay their taxes, and we collect that after the fact. Last year, we collected $440,000 of delinquent taxes. Then, we have to calculate the certified values, and you just adopted the certified values provided by Harris and Chambers County.

In addition to that, we have to add protests that haven't been certified. We have to subtract out tax ceilings for those individuals who are over 65, and their tax threshold is fixed. And then, we have to subtract out the taxable value of new improvements that were made after January 1st, so prior to the taxing period but included on the certified tax rolls.

So, that calculates our adjusted certified values. And then, we take the current year, I'm sorry, we take the adjusted levy, and we divide it by the current year revenue, and that's how we generate the no new revenue rate. In this case, the no new revenue rate is .19057, or essentially 19 cents. The second number that we have to calculate is the voter approval rate. The voter approval rate is based on the M&O rate plus whatever the INS rate is required to meet your bond payments. The voter approval rate simply is the rate that would generate an additional 8% of M&O taxes plus the taxes required to meet your INS obligations or your debt obligations.

And so, you can see here that the combined, that the M&O rate, no new, our voter approval rate is .180, right? The no new M&O rate is .167. All of these calculations are based on valuations. Now, we have to approve our budget before we have certified values.

And as we're going through the budgeting process, as we're trying to set the budget, we rely on whatever estimates we're getting from the counties to try and estimate that. And as you can see, those values have fluctuated significantly, right? So, we got estimates in May, we got updated numbers in August, and then both Chambers County, which had certified their role in August, made changes to their certified numbers, and Harris County didn't provide certified numbers until September 5th.

So, since we adopted the budget in August, the valuations have changed, and not by a small amount, right? They've changed by almost $950 million. As a result, here are the updated no new revenue rates, .190, and the voter approval rate, .187. As you look at our performance in the FY25 budget, you can see that our tax rate was .195, that the total levy plus the INS was expected to generate $40,571,000. We actually collected $40,130,000, which that number varies because part of that's based on how much we collect for current year taxes plus how much was collected on delinquent taxes, and that always gets a little squishy. But we're close, right? The process is designed to get that fairly close.

Under the FY26 proposed rate, which we have provided to you of .187, which is the voter approval rate, we are expected to generate $39,822,000. The reason that the voter approval rate is lower than the no new revenue rate is because our INS obligations have dropped so much. First of all, our minimum required payment dropped by a significant amount this year, and we eliminated the early defeasance payment, and so that dropped that amount significantly.

So our voter approval rate, the maximum that we could set the rate for without having to go to an election was less than the no new revenue rate. No matter what we would like to do, we're going to collect less taxes this year than we did last year. So how does that impact our budget projections based on what was adopted in August?

So in August, we were considering taxable values that were $950 million more than what actually ended up being the case. So with the voter approval rate being adopted at .187, we are going to generate $924,000 in less M&O revenue than we had anticipated in August. With that, I will answer any questions that you might have.

I made printouts for everybody, but I got kind of excited and forgot.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:24 - 1:23:25)
We're not seeing it.

[Speaker 14] (1:23:27 - 1:23:29)
Jacob, we can tell you the numbers get you excited.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:30 - 1:23:30)
We can tell that.

[Speaker 3] (1:23:40 - 1:24:18)
Questions? Yeah, I have a question. When we had the budget discussions last month, when we ended up at a rate of 18.3, we all understood that there was a kind of a placeholder penny, if I can use the term, or about $2 million when we were going to move over to our maintenance department or that fund. With the anticipation of the following fiscal year, bring that back because our INS rate is going to have to go back up to cover our interest in sinking expense. Is that correct?

[Speaker 2] (1:24:18 - 1:25:01)
Yes, that's correct. So our INS rate is unusually low this year, about $2 million in total payments. So next year, we have to raise the INS rate by one cent regardless of what rate is adopted.

And so the strategy that we wanted to employ was to put as much of that into the M&O rate this year so that next year when we have to increase the INS rate, we can lower the M&O rate without having to have any net tax increases to our taxpayers, essentially to even out the fluctuations that we have in the INS rate.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:02 - 1:26:45)
Well, in my view of that, and I agreed to it, was that in an effort to keep the tax rate somewhat changed or unchanged through that. With this development, I'm always going to advocate for the taxpayer. We have a significant surplus, and we have, of between 15 and 20 and almost 30 percent over the last six or eight years, significant as a percentage of our taxes collected.

And one thing that doesn't get mentioned is the state's increase in funding of $9 million, which is about four and a half cents, or at that time closer to five cents. And that just got absorbed into the budget, which in my mind should have reduced the burden on the local taxpayer more than it should have. Now, we have a surplus this year.

I'm going to give you six because I understand there's some residual payments that need to be made. So, instead of raising our rate or the recommended rate back up to the 18.7, could we not stick with the 18.3 that we talked about last month and, in my case, fought hard for and fund any shortfall of really that excess money that we were putting in maintenance out of our surplus from this year? I mean, we could fund it for a $1 million shortfall for six years if we needed to.

I still firmly believe that our tax rate is higher than it needs to be, and we've had a lot of discussions, and it's not, it's just a difference of philosophy. But I stand strongly that I cannot support this.

[Speaker 14] (1:26:46 - 1:26:55)
I can't support anything over the 18.3. So, Regent Hall, we don't know what our surplus is going to be. Like, I made that clear. He can, he's made some guesses.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:55 - 1:27:13)
Well, I was choosing six million as the lowest possible number. He was showing, if you go back to that slide, 11 million, but that was, there's some unfunded things, and I'm trying to take the most conservative number of six, which is what you had several months ago.

[Speaker 2] (1:27:13 - 1:27:17)
We will have at least six million dollars in surplus at the end of this year.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:17 - 1:27:22)
Okay, so I think everybody, and we, and that's on top of what surplus did we have last year.

[Speaker 2] (1:27:22 - 1:27:24)
We had 11 million dollars last year.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:24 - 1:27:27)
And the year before was in the nine range, I believe.

[Speaker 2] (1:27:28 - 1:27:30)
I don't recall what the year before was.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:30 - 1:27:42)
Yeah, you were here, but I mean, there's been significance. I view that as a structural surplus, and, because we've had them consistently over the last seven, eight, nine years.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:43 - 1:27:46)
Which is why, which is why we're strong today.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:46 - 1:28:31)
We're financially strong. I'm not, but at some point we're, we are adequately reserved. And I, I think it's time, it, to me, it looks like, you know, the taxpayers never really get the break that they deserve, especially with the state funding.

It's a, for us, it's like a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition. And I think when the rates, when the values come down a little bit, when the values go up, we don't say anything. We just ride, take the ride.

But when the values come down, oh, we, you know, we got to reverse that. I think we've, I think we have plenty of reserves to cover this shortfall that's come about because of the shortfall of evaluation.

[Speaker 14] (1:28:31 - 1:28:47)
I would like to comment that we have plenty of needs, too. So all sorts of industries coming into the area, we don't know what kind of programs and what kind of equipment we're going to need for those. I mean, we need to be prepared to respond when something like that comes, comes up.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:47 - 1:28:50)
We have $40 million in reserves.

[Speaker 14] (1:28:50 - 1:28:56)
There's a reason we have that. It's suggested up to six months reserve. We don't have six months yet.

[Speaker 3] (1:29:00 - 1:29:17)
It may take a long time to get into that, but that six months, three to six months, actually, we used to operate on four to six months. We used to operate on three, but most institutions didn't have any. We were operating with zero, right?

Yeah.

[Speaker 14] (1:29:18 - 1:29:19)
And we don't have four.

[Speaker 3] (1:29:19 - 1:29:58)
We don't even have four right now. Most institutions, when they count that, they count all of their cash reserves when they say how much cash they have. I think the city does this.

They look at how much cash they have on hand and how many months can they go based on that. We have a special category of reserves, but we're not counting any of the kind of the cash in the bank that's our operating cash, and that which would add significantly. We are well reserved.

I think if you ask Jacob his opinion on our level of reserves, we're probably one, we're in the best shape we've ever been in, but we're one of the best in the state is having adequate reserves.

[Speaker 14] (1:29:58 - 1:30:00)
Well, good for us. We need to be that way.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:01 - 1:30:32)
That was the goal. That was the goal. But it's a goal, but it's now time to pass along a little bit of the low.

I noticed that our state, our local tax funding has come down quite a bit in the pursuit of our overall operating budget. I think it was up in the 60s. Now we're down to 39, which is a good move.

It needed to come down. But it needs my opinion.

[Speaker 15] (1:30:32 - 1:30:40)
I think we ought to stick with the 18.3. So our current tax rate is 19 and a half cents, correct?

[Speaker 2] (1:30:40 - 1:30:42)
Our current tax rate is 19 and a half.

[Speaker 15] (1:30:42 - 1:30:54)
Right. So the proposed rate of 18.7, you know, three quarters of a cent. I think that's really good.

Really good. Really good. I like it.

[Speaker 20] (1:30:54 - 1:31:03)
And I think at some point in time we have to learn to trust the people that handle our numbers and give us those numbers and talk to us about them, what they think they need.

[Speaker 3] (1:31:03 - 1:32:07)
Well, last year's budget was presented as a balanced budget, and then we took a penny off, or whatever, half a cent, and it was going to be a one million dollar deficit. Twelve months later, it turned into a from six to eleven million dollar surplus. I'm going to go with the sixth number because that is the most conservative.

That's a seven million dollar swing, and that happened the year before, and Jacob wasn't here then, but it happened the year before and the year before and the year before and the year before. Which is why we're financial. But when you make the statement we have to trust the numbers that we were brought, experience has been those numbers have not been accurate, and that's the consistent here.

And so I'm arguing that we can lower the rate further, and I'm speculating. I speculated we'd have a three or four million dollar surplus this year, and I was right. Just off the...

[Speaker 4] (1:32:07 - 1:32:32)
On principle, I'd like to say that a budget is always a plan. It is never meant to be explicitly zero dollars in the direction that we predict it to be, and there are a number of factors that determine, and it's not... It is never meant to be hit on a target exactly as is.

It's a plan.

[Speaker 3] (1:32:32 - 1:32:42)
But a tax rate is not a plan. A tax rate is a hard number. Okay, I'd like to make two comments.

[Speaker 19] (1:32:42 - 1:32:45)
I'd like to make a question, Jacob.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:46 - 1:32:48)
Let's get some other questions.

[Speaker 19] (1:32:48 - 1:33:09)
I just hear him talking about the rate. Can you kind of put it in layman's term? The amount of money we're talking about and what programs will be affected if we adopt the tax rate that Regent Hall is talking about?

What's the dollar amount and the difference between the two tax rates, and how will it affect the day-to-day?

[Speaker 2] (1:33:10 - 1:36:05)
So if we reduce the tax rate by 0.4 cents, that's a little under a million dollars, probably close to $900,000 of revenue that we would not collect. Regent Hall is proposing to potentially backfill that difference with surplus from last year's surplus funds, which is certainly an option. Ultimately, if we make this change, there are a few impacts that that will have immediately on the college and some that are long-term.

Immediately, this impacts how much money we have available to continue to maintain the reserves and the levels that we've set, and it impacts our ability to continue to invest in our deferred maintenance projects and our capital improvement projects. For many years, we did not commit a significant amount of money to those projects, and that has left us in a significant deficit in terms of the maintenance of our facilities. Because of these surpluses, we've been able to dedicate a significant amount of funds, which has made a meaningful, visible, and notable difference on campus.

This is about being able to continue the service that we give to our students now and to ensure that we maintain the same level and quality of physical facilities in service to those students in the future. In terms of immediate impact on individual academic programs, we do not believe that this would have an immediate impact on academic programs. However, as I explained with the way that the tax rate works, as we reduce the rate, that reduces the amount that we collect, which reduces the numbers that we use for the calculation of no new revenue and the voter approval rate.

So it's not just a one-year consideration. A decision like this has a lasting effect, right? This is going to impact how much we generate next year and the year after and so on and so forth.

I would also like to remind the board that not too many years ago, our rate was over 25 cents, and we have consistently and regularly, year after year, lowered the rate in representing and protecting the interest of the taxpayers. We need this money. We need this money to serve our students the way that we need to and to stay on track with the improvements that we're trying to make on campus.

So from an administrative perspective, I strongly recommend that you adopt the 18.7 cents this year to maintain flexibility for next year as we adjust the INS rate up and the M&O rate down, and to ensure that we can continue to dedicate funds on an annual basis to our capital improvements and deferred maintenance projects.

[Speaker 1] (1:36:09 - 1:36:15)
I'm going to ask anyone else to make comment for you. Other comments from anyone?

[Speaker 14] (1:36:16 - 1:36:26)
I did hear you also say that you're not certain about some of our grant funding. So you're moving forward in good faith that we're going to get it, but we're kind of not sure.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:27 - 1:39:23)
So there's that. Jacob, correct me if I'm wrong, but so we know for sure that we are no longer an HSI, which limits what we can what we can receive and be awarded in federal grants. We are waiting to find out if our current C-Campus grant, which just began and was an award of $2 million, will continue to be funded or eliminated altogether.

And, you know, we were fortunate to be left with $150,000 right now to be funded and not have to be repaid. But in terms of the future, we don't know about TRIO. We don't know, you know, however long that's going to last.

It can just be dropped. So, for example, you know, one of our colleagues at the College of the Mainland, when she received her letter, she just began two different HSI grant funds, which is and just found out she's losing at the end of this month millions of dollars, which consists of 15 FTE employees and millions of dollars in services that no longer will be able to be provided to the students. So that's what we know about there.

In terms of the state funding that we received, we already know that we have lost close to $1.8 million through no fault of our own. All of our performance metrics have actually increased and that we should continue to expect, as I have said for years now, that that funding will not be stable. And in fact, it should be expected that it will go down every legislative session.

So that is what we do know. And we do know that in reducing the tax rate further, it influences our ability to have the capacity to build revenue when it comes time as we look at our master facility plan and to think comprehensively and strategically into the future about how we fund the things that we will need to change that the board designates as priorities. And it well, it doesn't hit everyone the same.

You know, not everyone is paying the taxes when we have the largest proportion of the taxes coming from industry. And not once, I will just say, not once has anyone in the community ever come up to me and said that the tax rate is too high. And I will also say that in fact, other citizens have come up to me and said, this institution needs to be staying in place for the next 91 years.

So we do not want, we don't want you to reduce the tax rate. Do what you need to collect the money so you can fix the campus in the way that we deserve to have it.

[Speaker 18] (1:39:26 - 1:39:39)
Jacob, do you have a slide that you haven't presented yet that shows what the impact of the difference to Delta would be to the actual taxpayer? Like, what is that gonna look like?

[Speaker 2] (1:39:39 - 1:40:50)
So I did not prepare that for today. Keep in mind, right, that this is, we're talking about four-tenths of a cent for every $100 of value. And that's after you take out the homestead exemption, which is fairly significant.

As we were looking at some of these solutions earlier, this is only going to be a dollar, maybe a dollar and a half for the average citizen in terms of tax savings. And the average citizen in Baytown, you know, their home is valued at $250,000, right in that range. And so we're not talking about a significant or potentially even a noticeable difference in terms of the impact on the average homesteader within the taxing district.

That amount would be on top of what they're already gonna be saving with lowering it from 19.5 to 18.7. All taxpayers, all taxpayers will pay less to Lee College this year than they did last year, regardless of which rate we adopt.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:53 - 1:42:54)
I'm gonna, I 100%, and Regent Hall and I have had this conversation for seven or eight years, I 100% understand the philosophy that you've had this entire time. I do not, it's not faulty. It's how you think.

I don't disagree with how you think. What I do know is had the majority thought like you for the last eight years, we wouldn't have had the money that we've had because we would have cut the tax rate, cut the tax rate, cut the tax rate. And I think we have cut the tax rate and I've said this year and put millions of dollars into our cash reserves, begun to be self-insured, which we're not completely there yet.

We still have to add to that fund, right? And we put, I've asked Jacob for this number, but the last time I looked, well over 30 million dollars into our facilities in those seven years. And maybe we went around it, you know, the backside and collected more than we needed to, but it was intentional in the early years not filling positions.

It was intentional to generate some money. So I completely understand where you're at and I've begun to agree with you as we've migrated forward and satisfied all these other needs, but we still have needs. We should have already had a general obligation bond election, right?

That got delayed. We started that process in 2018 with our revenue bond, 2018 revenue bond, planning for a GO bond and that hasn't happened. So we have taken these funds, taxpayer money, they would have paid in GO bond election, you know, money anyway, and put it right back into our facilities.

So I've kind of been weighing, you know, everything that's happened and I think, you know, we're forced to reduce the tax rate. We're not even, it's not even our choice right now. We have to reduce it.

And so I'm just very comfortable with what's been presented.

[Speaker 3] (1:42:55 - 1:43:51)
And I would just comment on a couple of things. My proposal did not include any cuts to what we were going to do in the in the maintenance budget because we were going to backfill it from the surplus this year. Keep in mind, we had a significant increase in state funding.

Any way you look at it, if you, if we lose another 20 percent that amounted at the time to five cents, let's drop it back to four or three. In addition to that, we've had significant increases in values through inflation and just increased value and the number of businesses in all here. And I think we're well positioned all for a bit more of a break.

It's not just the homeowner, it's the businesses, the small business that don't get homestead exemptions and so forth. A lot of them, and it's, it can be, it adds up. It just adds up.

We've, I think the money's there.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:52 - 1:44:24)
And I'm going to say, I think inflation and growth is what has allowed us to reduce the tax rate. That's when we've reduced it. When valuations have gone up, we've reduced the tax rate.

I don't believe that state appropriations was given to us to offset the tax rate. I believe that was performance based. We did well.

We should take that money, invest it into what we're doing and do even greater things, not reduce the tax rate. The taxpayers are getting what they paid for and the state is not offsetting the tax rate. Yeah, appropriate.

[Speaker 3] (1:44:25 - 1:44:35)
Our starting point was one of the highest tax districts in the state and we're still above average and we're well above our surrounding districts and so we need to keep that in mind also.

[Speaker 14] (1:44:36 - 1:45:11)
I think the taxpayers are pleased that we've been considerate and lowered the tax rate, if they even know. I would say that 70 percent don't even know that we've done that. But, but, but my, I think their expectations are that we continue to provide excellent instruction, provide excellent education for the students that come here.

They want us to have great faculty, great staff. They want our, our facilities to be maintained and preserve what they've already invested in all of these 91 years. That's what we've been trying to do.

[Speaker 18] (1:45:13 - 1:45:34)
Okay, we've, uh, I'm gonna have to take it for another number maybe. Come on. So, if we go with the .18706 tax rate and that plugs into the budget that we've already adopted, then what is the estimated surplus that's going to be left?

[Speaker 2] (1:45:35 - 1:46:10)
So, if we adopt a .187, we expect to generate $924,000 less than what we had budgeted for in, in the budget. And so, because of the dramatic change in valuations from August to September, we're already going to have to reduce our budget even at .187. If we, uh, drop it by another million dollars with a cut to .183, uh, then we're, then we're talking about a $2 million budgeted deficit, um, when you consider revenues to expected expenses.

[Speaker 18] (1:46:11 - 1:46:17)
So, are you telling me, does that statement mean that we would have no surplus at all? Correct.

[Speaker 2] (1:46:18 - 1:47:55)
Correct. That's what I'm saying. And as we've gone through the, the budgeting process, I, I've, I've tried this summer to be really transparent with the board about where we had surpluses built into the budget and how we have eliminated those, uh, in the process going forward.

And, and to the President's point, right, that the budget is our estimate for the activities that are going to take place during the next year. And we're very detailed in our efforts. Um, on, on a department level, it, it's down to the individual account code and what we expect to spend that on.

And in many cases, which vendor we already plan on using that with, if it's a reoccurring vendor. And so we do expect to spend that money. There are sometimes timing issues.

For example, this year we had $300,000 budgeted for a bulk buy on IT equipment, um, lab equipment for refreshing computer labs across campus. But with the facility's master plan and a reconsideration for how we're going to maintain these labs and where we need to maintain these labs, we decided to postpone that purchase. Uh, and we will, we will push that into FY26.

And so we do our very best. We're going to do a better job in the future of, of budgeting to our expenses and making sure that what we represent to the board is a true reflection of what we need and how we'll spend the money. Um, but right now, uh, we're already looking at a million dollar deficit in revenue and, uh, Regent Hall's suggestion would increase that to $2 million.

[Speaker 1] (1:47:59 - 1:48:19)
Okay. Any other comments or discussion on this item? All right.

I don't remember who motioned and seconded. Who motioned and seconded? Okay.

Comments from, uh, Judy or, or Mark Hemsel?

[Speaker 9] (1:48:21 - 1:48:22)
I'm good. No, thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:26 - 1:48:28)
Okay. Everyone's had an opportunity for discussion.

[Speaker 21] (1:48:29 - 1:48:34)
Your motion was by Regent Warford and your second was by Regent Fontenot.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:35 - 1:49:01)
I couldn't remember either. A lot of water under that bridge. Yeah.

Okay. Motion by Regent Warford, second by Regent Fontenot on the proposed tax rate of 0.18706 as, as, uh, recommended by administration. No further discussion.

I'll call the question. All in favor, raise your hand. All in line, say aye.

[Speaker 22] (1:49:03 - 1:49:04)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:06 - 1:49:09)
Any opposed? Raise your hand. Or say no.

[Speaker 9] (1:49:12 - 1:49:12)
No.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:13 - 1:50:13)
All right. You got that recorded, David? Seven yes.

No. All right. Motion passes.

All right. Time. We'll, uh, recess into executive session.

Uh, the meeting of the Lee College Board of Regents on the above list to date after proper posting and accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code for the specific purposes provided will recess from open meeting to closed meeting. No action will be taken while the board is at recess in executive session. All right.

The closed meeting has adjourned and the board will reconvene into open meeting. Last item on the agenda. Matters of concern for future agendas.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:14 - 1:50:50)
Yes. With us looking at future changes and expansion and so forth, I thought, I thought some of the buildings and things that she showed were very interesting and could have an impact on where our thoughts go and plans go and I would just like for us to consider maybe going up there and taking a tour of some of the expansion and changes that she's made. Structural changes in how they do if the board wants to consider that.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:52 - 1:50:52)
Yep.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:54 - 1:50:55)
Temple College. I'm sorry, Temple College.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:55 - 1:51:02)
Yes, that was that was brought up at the building committee meeting and I think the building committee will look at planning something if that's what we decide to do.

[Speaker 15] (1:51:02 - 1:51:06)
If it's appropriate to our facility and master plan.

[Speaker 22] (1:51:15 - 1:51:21)
So we wait until we get some of that and then make an assessment and talk about it.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:22 - 1:51:24)
We will, uh, work that into a future agenda.

[Speaker 3] (1:51:24 - 1:51:28)
To get before what horse or behind. All right.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:28 - 1:52:08)
Any other matters of concern? Great. All right.

Well, that's a great, that's a great follow-up item. Thank you very much. Any, any other items for, uh, future agenda items?

All right. Hearing none, we're adjourned.