[Speaker 1] (0:00 - 3:22)
So, I will now call to order this meeting of the Lee College Board of Regents on Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 6:21 p.m. We do have a quorum. We have seven present, one remote, and one absent. So, we will begin our meeting with the invocation and pledge the United States flag ...

[Speaker 11] (3:22 - 3:50)
... matters, but what it represents matters more.

We strive to turn classroom experiences into a career launchpad for our students. So, tonight, I have the privilege to introduce Mr. Christopher Reyes, who will share his story that speaks to the importance of these opportunities. I do want to also shout out to Cale...where's Cale? Cale, and I have Lena here. Is Lena here too? Oh, she didn't make it back over, but Cale is our Director of Work-Based Learning and has been working very hard.

[Speaker 5] (3:54 - 4:58)
First of all, I want to say thank you to all of y'all for the time and for the opportunity to come here. Everything started in high school, right? I got a free opportunity to learn HVAC, and I took it upon myself to learn it.

If it's free, why not learn the opportunity? At the end of the first semester, I got an opportunity to be a student worker for my instructor, Robert Hamilton, over there in the corner. Thanks to him, I got to experience future classes that I will be taking, and I got to learn more of the residential side.

Later that same year, I got introduced to an internship with my high school, and I will go from Monday to Thursday, and sorry, I'm really nervous.

[Speaker 13] (4:59 - 4:59)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (5:00 - 5:54)
So, I got to experience the chillers and the bigger jobs. They like the way I work. I got to do work in the morning, come to my student worker position afternoon, and take college classes in the afternoon as well.

All this including in a span of two months. Thanks to that opportunity, I got introduced to a full-time position with GCISD, and then thanks to my instructors, and Ms. Renita, and Ms. Lexi, they helped me out signing up for the full-time, and thanks to the Lord, I start tomorrow.

[Speaker 8] (6:01 - 6:16)
He did mention he was full credit, right?

[Speaker 11] (6:16 - 6:17)
He just graduated from GCM in May?

[Speaker 1] (6:58 - 7:22)
All right. Thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is disposition of minutes.

We have fiscal year 2027 goals workshop meeting August 20th, 2026, public hearing fiscal year 2027 budget August 20th, 2026, and board meeting on August 20th, 2026. Anyone who's read the minutes is welcome to make a motion to approve. So moved.

[Speaker 8] (7:22 - 7:22)
Second.

[Speaker 1] (7:23 - 8:42)
Motion, Regent Hall. Second, Regent Geralds. Any comments, corrections, or questions about the minutes?

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

All right. The minutes have been approved. We'll move to report to the chairman.

Remind me to hesitate on the vote to wait for Daryl, okay? Report to the chairman. I've got just a couple of things.

First of all, the Community College Association of Texas Trustees Conference last weekend was a record attendance for the conference. So there were more people here than there were at the last one and the one before. It was a very nice event.

If you were there, it's like you could have been anywhere in Austin or Houston or any other major city. Very beautiful venue, and they did a really good job of pulling things together. So appreciate them bringing that conference to Baytown.

The mayor welcomed everyone, and it was a good few days for all of us. Next item is just to remind everyone, I'm sure President Atkin has it on his update, but just the Lee College Foundation gala is this Friday. So I look forward to seeing everyone there and supporting our foundation.

All right. I'll move on to a building committee report. Regent Fontenot, do you have a report for us?

I do.

[Speaker 7] (8:43 - 9:32)
So we met on September the 16th. We received an up-to-date update on the facilities master plan, unlike tonight. And we also received an update on our fiscal year 2027 vehicle replacement schedule.

This will be on next month's agenda, but we're looking at five vehicles that are going to be replaced. That'll be for your consideration next month. Three are assigned to the security department, one to maintenance, and one to IT.

There were no items for this month's agenda for us to consider, and we received our regular update on current projects. That completes my report.

[Speaker 1] (9:32 - 9:39)
Thank you, Regent Fontenot. Any questions on that report? Okay, we'll move to policy committee.

Regent Hall.

[Speaker 10] (9:40 - 9:45)
Any policy committee has not met, but is scheduled to meet September the 30th. All right.

[Speaker 1] (9:45 - 9:49)
Thank you. Audit Investment Committee report. Regent Geralds.

[Speaker 6] (9:49 - 11:00)
Yes. We met yesterday, and Ms. Martinez, our new auditor, gave us an updated fiscal year 2026 audit status. Much of the 2026 audit was complete.

The contract management audit has been postponed and should be complete in 8 to 12 months. The cybersecurity audit has also been postponed and will be rescheduled into the next year. There is still work kind of going on through some of those audits anyway.

Ms. Martinez presented the committee with the 2027 internal audit plan. A few revisions will be made, and the committee will approve the plan. We were also presented with the preliminary audit budgeting detailing the approximate hours needed per audit with time built in to the budget to allow us for needed audits and follow-ups to complete the budget.

So, it was really nice because it was a budget of how many hours she thinks she may be working on certain audits and built-in time for things that come up and things that might need review. So, it was a real pleasure to spend time with our new auditor.

[Speaker 12] (11:04 - 11:10)
Any questions for Regent Geralds? All right, we'll move on to the report of the President, President Aitken.

[Speaker 2] (11:23 - 14:34)
So, while our presentation pulls up, the CCATT conference was very successful. We got tremendously positive feedback from those that participated in the tour of our facilities, and clearly we are blessed with some great facilities on our campus compared to what other institutions have to deal with. I feel very fortunate.

All right, I'd like to start with an update on our enrollment. As of census date, we have 9,616 students enrolled. That is the most in the history of the college.

We've never been over 9,000 in a given semester. This eight percent growth in enrollment is attributed primarily to dual credit, which is up 519 students, or approximately 16 percent, and 302 students at Huntsville, an increase of 28 percent. Clearly, the interest in the AA program that we added this year is explosive, and we expect that those numbers to continue to increase in spring semester.

To Regent Himsel's concerns that he's raised in the past, our main campus enrollment was down 135 students, and that will continue to be an area of focus and recruitment for us as we move forward. Chairman Santana mentioned this already, but Friday, September 25th, we have our Foundation Gala. This will be our largest crowd ever.

We have 425 individuals planning to be in attendance this year, which is tremendous. The support from our community continues to grow. We're very excited about this opportunity, and as a bonus surprise, we will have numerous student and student organizations at the gala this year demonstrating what they do and the things that they're learning in class, so we're excited to showcase our students a little more prominently this year.

We also celebrated 10 years at our Liberty Center. For those of you who don't know, this is a joint effort between Lee College and five ISDs. It's tremendously successful.

The facility is running at near capacity right now, and it just shows how successful we can be when we partner successfully with our ISDs and other partners. This is a tremendous success, and as an added bonus, after we celebrated 10 years, I took time to get my hair cut.

[Speaker 3] (14:36 - 14:38)
And the student cried.

[Speaker 2] (14:40 - 22:30)
You made a student cry? I did not make a student cry. The student cried because she was so joyful at the experience.

She was a dual credit student who had never done a clipper cut before. I was incredibly proud of her bravery to step up and have her very first client be the president of the institution. I think the haircut looks pretty good and certainly a great memory.

They are clamoring for more services, particularly CTE services. The needs of our neighboring communities continue to grow, and we're going to work hard to try and figure out how we can better meet those needs. Many members of cabinet, along with some of our workforce employees, were able to go on a tour of Chevron Phillips Chemical.

I'm pleased to announce that they are anxious to be a growing partner with the institution. We talked about everything from externships and internships to curriculum review, placement of our students, and they want to be engaged. They want to be engaged at all levels, in addition to just the annual giving that we received through CPChem.

We're excited about this opportunity, and we look forward to continuing to grow these types of industry partnerships as we move forward. We have two executive searches that are ongoing right now. We have completed the search for the vice president of external affairs and executive director of the Lee College Foundation.

I'm happy to announce that Amy Mundy, my top candidate, has accepted our offer. You will see that contract next month on our new employee list for approval, and she plans to start on November 16th, as soon as she gets done handing everything off to the foundation board, which meets on November 11th. So we're very excited to bring her on board.

She has experience in capital campaigns. She has experience working general obligation bonds through the community, and we feel that she brings tremendous experience and expertise to the college. Very excited to see how she helps lead us to new heights of fundraising and development activities in our community.

She also serves on several tech committees regarding legislative affairs and is very connected politically. We have on-campus interviews for our finalists for the chief financial officer next week. Members of the board, you should have received invitations to the public presentations that will be taking place.

We have three good candidates. We're excited to showcase them next week, and me personally, I'm very, very excited to get this position hired and filled. On a sad note, unfortunately, we lost Ron Haddix, a long-time supporter of Lee College and a former board member.

His contributions were significant, and he will be missed. We have several items coming up here at Lee College. As many of you know, we've started showing films in the pack.

I've received positive feedback from community members about Batman the Dark Knight that we showed last week. We have Pride and Prejudice, Psycho and Psycho coming up later this month and next month. We're also excited about some family fun, including the solo piano concert, a little dodgeball between faculty, staff, and students, and I would extend the invitation to participate to any on the board who would like to fight on the side of faculty and staff.

You're not allowed to aim for the head, but accidents will happen. I'm playing on the side of the students. We have Trunk or Treat coming up on October 22nd, and on October 27th, spring registration starts, so we're already getting ready to roll into next semester.

Steel is going up at Mont Bellevue. You can see at the pictures to the right that the main infrastructure for the building is starting to go up. The central plant is completely finished, and so it's going to start looking like a building before we know it.

We're still on track to start offering classes next fall. Our workday implementation is still in status green. There are a few areas with regard to risk independencies that are a little bit behind schedule.

We are at 43%. Our planned progress was at 47%. However, I think some of you had discussions with PTG at the conference, and I think you got some feedback about the progress that we're making on our implementation.

Our team is doing a tremendous job, and even PTG is acknowledging the work and effort that's going into this. Very excited for this to go live. We still expect to be fully live by April 30th of next year on finance and HR.

I wanted to give a short update on board travel. We don't really have a regular situation to discuss this, but you can see the total cost of travel from 24, 25, and 26. Starting in 25 and 26, we had some group expenses.

These are mills and other shared expenses that are not incurred by any one single board member. The college right now is averaging around $55,000 per year in board travel. However, that will be a little lower this year, partly because we had the opportunity to host a conference here in Baytown, and partly because we cut your budget.

I'd like to close with a little update on women's volleyball. We're very proud of the team. They are performing exceptionally.

Over the weekend, we beat the number 15 team in the country, the first place team in our region. We are only two wins away from sharing first place in our region, and so we're very competitive. The region as a whole is incredibly competitive.

If we drop two games, we could go from very near to the top to very near the bottom. And so it's an exciting season. We have an excellent atmosphere for those of you who have attended games, and encourage everybody to come out and support our team as often as you are able.

[Speaker 8] (22:34 - 22:36)
And I think that's it. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (22:38 - 22:44)
All right. Thank you, President Adkin. Any questions on his report?

You're on the student side in dodgeball?

[Speaker 2] (22:45 - 22:47)
Oh, yeah, if I get to take shots at you guys.

[Speaker 1] (22:49 - 23:04)
You're on the student side? I hope that works out well. All right.

We'll leave it at that. All right. Next item, we have informational reports.

We'll start report of Lee College resignations and or retirements. President Adkin.

[Speaker 2] (23:09 - 23:57)
We had two resignations and two retirements. Justin Dykes resigned from his position as a full-time faculty in English after one week of service. Derek Lockett resigned from his service as a technical career navigator after five years of service.

John Elliott, a full-time faculty in drafting, retired from the college after 19 years of service. And Stephen Showalter retired as a full-time faculty for government after 29 years of service. So, very grateful for their long-time commitment.

Next, we have the financial report. I'll turn this over to Renee Woodruff to walk us through that.

[Speaker 8] (24:17 - 24:18)
Good evening.

[Speaker 4] (24:20 - 24:51)
Tonight, I'm going to provide an overview of the financial position. As of August 31st, which is also the fiscal year end, we'll begin with our cash and investments. As of August 31st, we ended with $73.6 million. Excluding the land held for investments, we ended up at $57 million, of which $35.2 is board reserves and $21.9 is unrestricted.

[Speaker 8] (24:57 - 25:01)
Next, I'll provide a high-level review of our revenues and expenses.

[Speaker 4] (25:02 - 28:48)
As of August 31st, we collected $88 million in revenues, which was 101.5% of budget and a 1.64% decrease from prior year. That's primarily due to the state appropriations. On the expense side, we expensed $82.7 million at 95.5% of budget and there was a 2% increase in expenses, resulting in a $5.2 million net revenue over expenses. Overall, our revenue was $1.3 million over budget and expenses were $3.9 million under budget on expenses, resulting in a $5.2 million variance of net income. Below, you can see the revenues that contributed to the $1.3 million, primarily the district taxes. Of that $1,700,000 of that was the prior year payments and penalties in interest.

And then expenses were under budget by $3.9. This includes computer software, but that number will change because we still haven't closed out the fiscal year, so we'll still be paying some invoices to go toward that. Other operating expenses of $1.1 and $400,000 of the contingency savings that were not spent. Facility reports, we had $505,000 in expenses paid out for the ADA phase two.

There's not been much activity there. Capital projects, we budgeted $9.6 and our August expenses were $578,000, which consisted of painting, carpet projects, portable generator, roof repairs, elevator modifications, and furniture. And the emergency management was for surveillance camera system.

And our total expenses for the year ended at $2.6 million, leaving us $6.7 million to roll over to the next year. Last but not least, our restricted funds. We generated $23.2 million in revenues and $22.3 in expenses, resulting in a net income of $831,000. I'm not sure if you've noticed your packets. First, we had another report. This report looks different.

Your packet should have been updated, but I just want to kind of explain what happened. There was a timing issue with when I ran my reports and when they were doing their year-end entries, so it was kind of off. So I just wanted to make it clear that these are the most accurate numbers because we had year-end entries in the grants and I've seen the variances, and I just wanted to make it look right.

So, but that is pretty much it. And we also had a late payment from Pell last week, so I just wanted to reflect that in our reports.

[Speaker 1] (28:50 - 29:01)
Any questions for Ms. Woodruff? So just to clarify, the last screen you showed us, that usually, that nets out at some point, right? I mean, we didn't, we didn't make.

[Speaker 4] (29:01 - 29:02)
Federal should always.

[Speaker 1] (29:02 - 29:08)
Yeah, we didn't make $891,000. We just, that's just the the difference right now at this point in time, right?

[Speaker 13] (29:09 - 29:09)
Yes.

[Speaker 8] (29:12 - 29:17)
Any questions? Anyone? All right.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (29:27 - 29:32)
Okay, next item on the agenda will be the General Education Review for Senate Bill 37 Compliance.

[Speaker 8] (29:33 - 29:51)
That's me. That's you. Okay, thank you.

All right.

[Speaker 3] (29:52 - 35:58)
Short people problems. So if you have questions, you're gonna have to yell or jump up and down or stand on chair or something. I don't know.

All right. Senate Bill 37 stipulates several requirements regarding general education. The first requirement is that governing boards must complete a review of general education courses every five years.

The first cycle must occur before January 1st, 2027. In this review, the board should assure whether our general education courses meet the following objectives. The courses should be foundational and fundamental to a sound post-secondary education.

They should be necessary to prepare students for civic and professional life. They should equip students for participation in the workforce and in the betterment of society. And they should ensure a breadth of knowledge and compliant in order to be compliance with accreditation standards.

There are nine general education component areas identified by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Those include communication, mathematics, life and physical science, language, philosophy, and culture, creative arts, American history, government and political science, social and behavioral sciences, and a component area option, which includes our learning frameworks course in our health and physical fitness. We have 97 core courses found in our catalog within those nine areas.

Because of the length of the list, I've provided the webpage to the list and a hard copy in your packets. The courses are listed in the academic course guide manual, which is managed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Each course includes a course description and student learning outcomes which we must use.

All course syllabi are available electronically in our syllabus library and each course syllabus contains the course description and student learning outcomes for the course. This information is pulled directly from our systems, not entered manually by faculty, so each section of a course, regardless of the modality or the instructor of record, will have the same course description and the same student learning outcomes. Let's look at English 1301, which is one of our general education courses that nearly every student takes.

The student out the learning outcomes are shown on the left and the four criteria for assessment are shown on the right. By the end of this course, the student should have demonstrated knowledge of writing processes, be able to write in a style appropriate to the audience and purpose, and develop ideas with appropriate support. Based on this set of learning outcomes, I think it's safe to say this course meets the four criteria of review.

Okay, we're going to work through an example so I can show you where to find the things. And Romero, I need to, I've got to be able to pull up the website. I need to go all the way back so they don't know where to find it.

Okay, there is a link in your packet. However, this is the way you get to our electronic syllabus. If you go to the website and click on logins, you see a tile that says class syllabi.

Our electronic syllabus didn't start until spring 2025, and so if you click spring 2025 and later, it will take you to our electronic syllabus library. If you click on the term, you can select current and historic in order to pull all syllabi, and then you can click on a subject, and it will bring up all of the subjects for you. The one thing to remember in here is at the end of every course rubric or abbreviation, there is an H or a B.

The H means it's a Huntsville course, and the B means it's a Baytown course. So if I scroll down to, I'm just going to pick something, history. History 1301 is a core course, and I see all the syllabi come up.

Again, the course descriptions and the learning outcomes are the same, so I'm just going to pick the first syllabus. When you pull it up, you'll see that the course description and the student learning outcomes are easily found on the first page of the syllabus. Again, these course descriptions are the same, so whichever syllabus you click on, it should match.

Prior to January 2021, the Board of Regents should review all general education courses, all 97. Congratulations. Their course descriptions and student learning outcomes and determine if our general education curriculum is foundational and fundamental, necessary to prepare students for civic and professional life, equip students for participation in the workforce and the betterment of society, and ensure a breadth of knowledge.

I would recommend the board prepare a short summary indicating the review has been completed and have that report accepted at a regular board meeting so it's reflected in the minutes. That will complete the general education review to maintain compliance with SB 37.

[Speaker 8] (36:05 - 36:08)
97. 97.

[Speaker 3] (36:12 - 36:52)
The additional board requirement related to SB 37 is that the board must be notified of any changes to our core curriculum each year. For this year, we added Biology 2420, which is microbiology for non-science majors. We already had microbiology for science majors in our core, however, this non-science major version is better suited for health care or other students not majoring in biology or another science.

Each year, board minutes should reflect that this notification occurred for documentation purposes, so I ask that tonight's minutes reflect notification of that core curriculum change.

[Speaker 8] (36:55 - 37:05)
Are there questions? Awesome. That's it.

[Speaker 13] (37:05 - 37:05)
That's it.

[Speaker 12] (37:06 - 37:12)
Thank you very much. Any questions?

[Speaker 3] (37:17 - 37:21)
I think they said the newest board member had to review all.

[Speaker 7] (37:24 - 37:35)
I want to know how stars and galaxies. I want to know what's in that course and how it lines up with everything.

[Speaker 3] (37:35 - 37:39)
Then you're in luck because you're about to get to find out.

[Speaker 1] (37:41 - 38:54)
All right, we'll take this up another time. All right, next item. Before we move to public comment, I have one more general comment.

I thanked everybody for being patient and walking over here or driving, whatever you did. I failed to acknowledge what our facilities and our IT folks did to make this happen. I felt about the facilities guys not moving when the lights went out.

I think their prayer was they're going to come right back on, right? But when they didn't, they jumped into action. IT folks came over here ahead of us, made sure we were set up to meet all the requirements that our attorney said we had to meet in order to have a meeting, and so thank you to you guys for stepping up and handling that tough situation.

All right, next we'll move to public comment. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? No one signed up.

All right, thank you very much. All right, we'll move on to items of action. Under personnel, we have consent agenda, consideration of new hires.

The administration recommends that the board approve the new hires as presented below. We have Rachel Dotson, program manager in health care, Joshua Ramirez, transfer success coach, and Danielle Redhead, transfer success coach. These positions are all currently budgeted.

I'll move.

[Speaker 13] (38:54 - 38:55)
Second.

[Speaker 1] (38:55 - 39:15)
Motion from Regent Guillory, second from Regent, this one over here, Warford. I'm used to where everyone sits and I hear who talks. I'm a little out of sorts right now.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Do we have any discussion on this item? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

[Speaker 13] (39:16 - 39:16)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (39:16 - 39:42)
Any opposed, no. Aye. All right, gotcha.

Thank you. All right, the consideration of new hires has been approved. Next item on the agenda is consideration of elimination of international education fee.

The administration recommends that the board authorize the president or his designee to approve elimination of the two dollar per semester international education student fee effective spring 2027.

[Speaker 13] (39:44 - 39:45)
I'll move. Second.

[Speaker 1] (39:46 - 40:35)
Motion from Regent Guillory, second from Regent Geralds. Any questions or comments on this item? Any discussion?

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

All right, elimination of international education fees is approved. Next item on the agenda is consideration of contract with outreach strategies LLC for rebranding consulting services. The administration recommends that the board authorize the president or his designee to negotiate final terms and approve an agreement with outreach strategies LLC in the amount of $137,860.

We got a motion from Regent Warford, second from Regent Hemsel. Any discussion or questions on this item?

[Speaker 10] (40:35 - 40:44)
Is this a new company or is this, we previously had one in California, I don't know, just from memory. Is this a new contractor?

[Speaker 2] (40:45 - 40:59)
Yes, so we have used them in the past for other marketing related items, but this is not the same company that's been used in the past for large rebranding.

[Speaker 8] (41:03 - 41:09)
For rebranding, are we talking about like mascot change, like what do we rebrand?

[Speaker 2] (41:11 - 42:24)
So the most obvious visible mark that will be changed is our mascot. This will also allow us to look at our color palette. We'll keep red as our primary color, but we may alter our secondary colors.

We'll also look at our font type and set and the organization of some of our logos. We are keeping the star and the red and the Lee College. Everything else might be tweaked a little bit.

The largest deliverable that will matter the most functionally for us is going to be the rework of our website as part of this. So our website needs a major overhaul. The platform that we use is sufficient, so we don't need to spend more money on the infrastructure for the website, but we need to do a lot of work to get it updated to eliminate orphan pages that are still out and available via search and all of those types of things.

And so we'll clean up our marks and create some consistency there and then rework the web page as part of this agreement.

[Speaker 10] (42:24 - 42:27)
Now will they be helping us rework the web page?

[Speaker 2] (42:27 - 42:35)
They will, yes. So that's one of the most expensive parts of the engagement is working through the website.

[Speaker 6] (42:35 - 42:38)
We're not looking at changing the name Navigator, are we?

[Speaker 2] (42:39 - 42:39)
Yes.

[Speaker 9] (42:44 - 43:09)
I have a comment, but I need to see it in the mic, please. This is not to change the name of Lee College. This does not include, it has nothing to do with changing the name.

Our name is Lee College and it will remain Lee College. I just needed to say it.

[Speaker 1] (43:10 - 43:13)
It sounded like a statement to me. I don't think it was a question. It was not a question.

[Speaker 9] (43:14 - 43:25)
Before people start going all over the place, it is not changing the name of the college.

[Speaker 2] (43:27 - 43:29)
That's correct. And that's not.

[Speaker 9] (43:29 - 43:31)
We are not changing.

[Speaker 2] (43:32 - 43:41)
That is not an option. It's not being considered. Only the Navigator mascot is being considered.

[Speaker 1] (43:41 - 44:08)
Thank you for that clarification. Maybe we can put that in writing if you'd like. How about you put it in writing?

All right, thank you. We do know, and just in the comments part of this, we do know there's going to be folks who do not know what we're going to do, what we may be doing. We're not saying we're doing what we may be doing.

And so you're engaging the community in this process, right?

[Speaker 2] (44:08 - 44:08)
We are.

[Speaker 1] (44:09 - 45:06)
So there will be community involvement. It won't be just a few folks in a closed room making decisions. And so I think we just, we need to defend the process until we see what the product is.

And then if we as a board have a problem with the product, that's when we have an opportunity. But I think the community will be pleased. I think it's a re-energizing our team and our community.

And I think with the opportunity to expand into our service area, I think this is an opportunity to take advantage of, you know, we started this five or six years ago when the mascot did change, and we talked about a rebranding. We just got distracted with a lot of other things going on. And so I don't, this is nothing new.

We've talked about this before. So, okay, those are my comments. Any other discussion on this item?

Thank you, Gina. Anytime. I can always count on you.

All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Any opposed?

[Speaker 13] (45:07 - 45:07)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (45:08 - 46:51)
All right. Any opposed? Nay.

All right. We have, do the count. That's seven, four, one against, one absent.

All right. So we've approved the contract with Outreach Strategies, LLC. Next item on the agenda is consideration of new associate degree program respiratory therapy.

The administration recommends that the board authorize the president for his designee to pursue approval by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Commission on Colleges and Universities for a new associate degree program in respiratory therapy. This program is a, it's a program, it's a program that will be offered by Lee College and Barbaras Hill ISD. So you read, you've read the details.

What's the pleasure? So moved. Second.

Got a motion, brings Gerald. Second, Regent Warford. Any, any discussion on this item?

Hearing none, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

No. All right. Consideration of the associate degree program respiratory therapy is approved.

Next item, consideration and approval of resolution adopting the certified appraisal roles for chambers and Harris counties for the 2026 tax roll year. The administration recommends in accordance with section 26.04 the state property tax code that the governing board receive the submission and issue the attached resolution adopting the 2026 certified tax appraisal role for Chambers County and the Harris County certified tax appraisal roles. Y'all, y'all want to read the resolution or?

[Speaker 8] (46:52 - 46:53)
I got it.

[Speaker 1] (46:53 - 47:00)
So moved. Got a motion from Regent Hall. Second from Regent Guillory.

Any discussion on this item?

[Speaker 9] (47:00 - 47:02)
Let's look at the numbers.

[Speaker 1] (47:03 - 47:04)
Favorable, I know.

[Speaker 12] (47:05 - 47:07)
You want to just cover the numbers?

[Speaker 2] (47:07 - 47:51)
So we are moving forward with the same tax rate next year that we had this year. That will generate, uh, that will be based on total taxable value of $784,381,281. Uh, and, uh, includes, um, property that have not been added to the certified, certified roles of $425,391,608.

It might be easier to just read the whole resolution.

[Speaker 1] (47:57 - 50:43)
Okay. So resolution in order of the Board of Regents of Lee College District of Chambers and Harris Texas adopting the 2026 appraisal role of the Chambers and Harris County's appraisal districts, whereas the Chambers and Harris County's appraisal districts have submitted to the Lee College District for approval the 2026 tax appraisal roles and whereas the Board of Regents is of the opinion that the 2026 appraisal role with the amount shown therein should be adopted and whereas the Chambers County appraisal district and Harris County appraisal district have certified to the Lee College District as of January 1, 2026, property with a total taxable value of $21,656,617,812 and whereas property values that are uncertified and under protest and therefore are not included in the certified appraisal roles have a total taxable value of $784,381,281 and whereas additional uncertified property values that are not under protest but have not yet been included on the certified appraisal roles have a total taxable value of $425,391,608.

Therefore be it resolved by the Board of Regents for the Lee College District of Chambers and Harris County's Texas that section 1 the 2026 tax appraisal role showing that there was situated in Lee College District boundaries of both Chambers and Harris County's Texas as of January 1, 2026, property with a total taxable value of $21,656,617,812 and an uncertifiable tax value estimate of $1,209,772,889 as submitted by the Chambers and Harris County's appraisal districts is hereby adopted and section 2 the Board of Regents officially finds determines recites and declares that a sufficient written notice of the date hours place and subject of this meeting of the Board of Regents was posted at a place convenient to the public at the offices of Lee College District for the time required by law preceding this meeting as required by the open meetings law Texas government code and that this meeting has been open to the public as required by law at all times during which this resolution and the subject matter thereof has been discussed considered and formally acted upon the Board of Regents further ratifies approves and confirms such written notice and the contents and posting thereof and when we approve it it'll be passed and approved this the 22nd day of September 2026.

[Speaker 13] (50:44 - 50:44)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (50:48 - 50:48)
You owe me.

[Speaker 13] (50:50 - 50:51)
I got you.

[Speaker 1] (50:51 - 50:55)
Yeah okay any other uh discussion item on this?

[Speaker 10] (51:04 - 51:14)
No. What with this tax rate and this amount what is the impact on our election or our taxable our proceeds?

[Speaker 2] (51:17 - 51:41)
So the taxable values went up from last year so this will generate $1,231,305 more than it did last year.

[Speaker 12] (51:46 - 51:49)
Thank you very much. Any other questions on this item?

[Speaker 1] (51:53 - 51:57)
All right hearing none we'll now take a vote. All in favor please say aye.

[Speaker 13] (51:58 - 51:58)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (52:00 - 52:45)
Any opposed no. All right uh motion and second to approve the resolution adopting the certified appraisal roles for Chambers and Harris Counties for the 2026 tax roll year have been approved. All right next item on the agenda consideration of a proposed tax rate and setting date for a public meeting to adopt tax rate for the 2026-2027 fiscal year.

The administration recommends in accordance with current legislation that the board propose by recorded vote the 2026-2027 proposed tax rate for the 2026-2027 fiscal year and set the date for a public meeting for adoption of the proposed 2026-2027 tax rate.

[Speaker 8] (52:49 - 52:54)
Anything else? I don't think there's anything else I need to read on here. All right I have a motion.

[Speaker 1] (52:56 - 54:39)
Got a motion from Regent Hemsel the overpowered Regent Warford who's a second. Do we have any discussion on this item? Any clarifying questions?

I will note that the uh the meeting is scheduled for October 15, 2026 our regular board meeting. All right no other discussion items? Hearing none all in favor say aye.

Aye. Any opposed no. All right the motion to consider proposed tax rate setting date for a public meeting to adopt tax rate for 2026-2207 fiscal year has been approved.

Okay that takes us to the end of our action items. Next item on the agenda the meeting of Lee College Board of Regents on the above list to date after proper posting in accordance with chapter 551 of the Texas government code. For the specific purposes provided we'll recess from open meeting to closed meeting.

No action will be taken while the board is recessed in executive session. We will consult with our board attorney may discuss have discussion on lee college president's dues and responsibilities. So we will now move into executive session.

Have any matters of concern for future agendas? Hearing none any other discussion? Daryl still with us?

All right no other uh no other items on the agenda we are now adjourned.