Good afternoon. I like to call to order the special meeting. This is our meeting with the Brother County Board of Commissioners and Hazel Thermal Community College. Order trustees have a look to the commission for the approval of the agenda. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Any discussion? We're going out the Commission of Elevations and obligation with the school, which is what I believe. Any further discussions? I'll call the question. I'll pay for your right hand. You can vote flat-wise. Commissioners, all right. We have one item agenda, which is 3754, the budget meeting with board commissioners and then the community college board trustees. I can recognize their board chair at this time. Thank you. Called reconvene our meeting of this afternoon. First of all, I want to thank the county commissioners for hearing this again. I think this may be the 60th time this year is the 60th anniversary. We're starting the 60th anniversary of Austin is the 60th anniversary we're starting the 60th anniversary of Austin with me to call it. In 1964, there was a meeting not unlike this. It certainly wasn't here because this was a wind big city at that time. So I think it was over in the courthouse that people like from our standpoint, two of the most famous names in the history of Austin thermal Trustees, Ivy Callan and Lee Powers, the Powers Scholarship man. They were on that board that met then. And what's unique about that is 60 years of cooperation. And I want to thank this group for continuing. And I think everybody in this room knows that it has been a very fruitful relationship over the years and once again we're here to ask for what we think is a conservative budget request. You do know that we are about to get into a big building, the largest building project in our history I guess guess you would say, but we didn't come to ask you for money to add. But I'll turn it over to our president, Dr. Margaret of the Penn Shialah, who will tell you all about our budget request. Good afternoon, and thank you all again for allowing us to be here and talk through this request with you and for the support that you continue to demonstrate for the college and the work that we do for our community. What you have in your request packet is first a comparison or a summary of the budget drivers that annually when we come before you, we think it's very important to be transparent in how we are spending the funds that you entrust us with to serve our community. And so as you look at those trends over time, there aren't a lot of surprises. Those reflect what you would anticipate. The largest portion of our budget is spent on personnel. The facilities and those who care for those facilities both across our maintenance, physical plant, our grounds and our custodial teams and the support, the supervisory support for those teams. So obviously as we see increases in benefits cost predominantly, those costs continue to increase. And so that's provided that again continues to be one of the primary drivers for our budget request. The second most notable is probably not unlike what each of you are experiencing and that's an increase in the cost of electricity. That's certainly something that we've experienced at the college. We've taken many steps over the years with your support to be more energy efficient and decrease those costs as much as we can but now as the cost of electricity is increased, we are seeing that as an influence on our budget. And finally, the third predominant cost in our budget request is aligned directly to what Mr. Hutchins mentioned about being very near 60 years old. And so repairs to facilities and maintaining those facilities in a manner that allows us to continue to serve our community is a driver for us. If you look at the expenses as are reflected, these are reflected based on the budget that you provided us for county operations, county funded operations in the current fiscal year, and then projected for what we anticipate the need to be in the upcoming fiscal year 25. And you'll see the amount of increase in each category by category. So not as an effect on the overall budget, but just a categorical increase. Again, seeing that plant operations and maintenance make up the most significant cost as we are caring for the facilities to be able to provide instructional space and support for our students. And if you note across all categories, the budget is reflecting a request of an increase over last year's funding at 3.55%. I will share with you we've been exceptionally diligent about expanding our impact to serve more members of our community. This year we saw an increase of nearly 5% in the number of students we've served and those students have been taking more classes per student by ratio so accelerating to their certificate or credential completion with the change to eight week courses so we've significantly modified our schedule because we recognize that many of the, especially the adults in our community, if they are going to work toward a new credential or a credential that will allow them to upskill in their current career, they do not have time to languish. So we need to schedule classes in a way that meets students needs and allows them to move more quickly toward their ultimate goal. We think we're a delightful place to be, but we're not a destination. We're a through point for these students to get them into the workforce and into careers where they can support themselves and their families and engage in the community that we are so pleased to call home. So I bring this to you. I'm happy to answer any questions. And with that, I will turn that over. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ben. President, are there any questions or comments from the Board of Commission at this time? Just for a point of clarity, although I am on the ICC Board of Trustees and I've seen this before. But we need transparency and then the question I have to ask is general institution, see that we're going from $12,500 to $20,000 in legal services. What was that in tailing? So at the request of the board, we now have a college attorney attending all of our board meetings, our regular board meetings prior to that change. It was just on an as needed. So that includes fees for being present at the meetings. Yeah, I think that a very prudent thing to have legal counsel during or trustee meetings or I should say your or trustee meetings given this context and insurance at one of $20,000 as well. We continue to see significant increases. Cybersecurity insurance is one of the primary drivers of that. That's something that continues to be an issue. And we also had some increase in insurance due to the ability to finally purchase the facilities vehicles that the county approved. But that came with a little bump in insurance cost as well for new vehicles as we eliminated some of those that were no longer serviceable in the fleet. I'm standing. And the only other question I have at this time, shows that over, I'm on the other sheet here, the Rutherford County Budget Driver's Historical Trends, although full-time salaries and benefits have gone on 13.96% over the last five years, we've had a decrease for the project in 2324. What do we attribute to that? Are we cutting certain programs or? That actually is a decrease by one full-time equivalent position for our custodial team. So we had a custodian who left us on medical leave initially and then upon qualifying for long-term disability finally retiring from the college. Our custodial team pulled together and they kind of reevaluated how we could meet the needs of our facilities and instead of replacing that position they redistributed duties so it resulted in a cost savings. It also allowed us to look at their salaries and provide them with some compensation for taking on additional duties but it ended up being a cost savings because not only is that a cost savings in salary, but it's a cost saving in the additional benefits. That's fantastic. And again, these questions I've just asked. I've asked them last week in the Board of Trustees, but again, just for clarity, I thank you for disclosing to the board here. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I'd like to thank Commissioner Hunt for his role as a chair of our finance committee. It's one of the things that was brought up by actually by this group years ago was that one of the things our board needed was to have people with financial experience and financial education. And it certainly is important It certainly comes in handy at this time of year That's true. We've actually appreciated having someone on this board with that kind of experience And so I mean, thank you for observing what is you know, you really need this kind of commissioner serving with Antraste, it's been my pleasure Any other questions? I'm just going to say to the job that you all do. It's just me. I mean, everything you do is very good, but I'm biased because I helped down there, son. I mean, I helped teach some of the BLET stuff, and I was there last month teaching the maintenance staff that is there on top of the ball. I mean, they helped with some of the stuff that we did, just also. I mean, and they're enthusiastic more than they were in the past. So it's just, it's a whole different atmosphere than it used to be every year's ago. I don't buy anybody to come and look at the solitude. It is clean, it is clean. It is clean. It is awesome. I mean, there's a big difference. And I've been teaching here since 88. It's awesome. It is. It is. It's a neat facility all around and the things that they do and the main staff keeps up to your grounds perfectly. And thank you all for what you're doing for the community. I'd like to put a book on that as well. I think we made an outstanding choice in our new president here. And all of this is attributable to the leadership in the shadow that you cast and that is why we're having such great successes here. I thank you, Dr. Nuzia. Thank you. If I may, I would like to introduce our new vice president of operations. Last year we had Mr. Steven Mathini with us as our vice president and administrative services. So I'd like to introduce you to our new Vice President of Operations with your member. Thank you. Madam would you like to stand and So she requested the opportunity to engage in this from maybe a farther back road this time, but she was engaged in the process as we prepared the final numbers and the final narrative. And certainly has already dug in and will be engaged in the process, but it's so important we've talked about the transparency and the trust that we have between us so that we can continue to serve our community. Our purpose here is to do that. And so we take that very seriously in the way that we spend our funds that you entrust with us and in the way that we spend our funds that you entrust with us, and in the way we serve. So it's great to have Dr. Smith with us. She comes from a long and storied background that Mr. Hutchins has enjoyed sharing, but for the purpose of this meeting, I look forward for her to get to meet each of you individually after work and work with you going forward. Welcome Dr. Smith. Thank you. Thank you. And Dr. Smith, you may not know this or you may not be aware, but the Board of Trustees, Trustees Management Team and the County Commission's Management Team, for years have regents of communication, where we, between 101 and so you and your counterparts will have that. And that's one of the reasons I believe that we've been so successful and some of the challenges and successes that we've had apply science building, the new science building, nursing building, I don't know what to call it. Maybe It's not going to be called the King Building, I heard. If the price is right, I think there is somebody very more well deserving, which I've already fully established. No, no. And which, but seriously're just bringing that back to campus and for the work that you guys do and you're presenting. Not only helping our citizens, but our new employers, you know, have to interview some companies, we'll be on the EDC, you know, they did it, they looked at community college and education system. You know, how important it is and what a big driver you are in that so thank you for that. Thank you for presenting your budget. Again, we've had a chance to premium and appreciate that so this was a surprise. And I would like to say is there any questions for award at this point? Yeah, you were talking earlier about the eight-week curriculum trying to the individuals that work, you know, trying to get them, they're certificate or whatever they need to do, advance at work. Have you been able to develop a relationship with our local school systems to where we can get some of the high school individuals more involved, maybe looking at the career aspect, have you been able to bridge that? We continue to expand the number of students in our local schools in our career programs. Three years ago when I arrived we had at that time what was called an I-Tech program. I mean we still have that. That was a career focused path. What we've done with Dr. Thomas and his team leading through the academic programs is introduce more programs into that I-Tech program. So provide more career pathways specifically for high school students and we've seen an increase this year, this academic year, in the number of participants. we anticipate that that will continue. And we also are launching an EMS program for our high school students. So while they're in high school, they can continue to pursue education down that pathway. Now they have to be 17 to participate. But that allows them in their senior year to get the coursework that they need so that they can begin serving immediately. Well, that's promise of news because I know we have a shortage of EMAs. I mean, that's extremely needed field and some of some of these other other pathways you know that I know what mean you have talked before about you know working with the school system the ones that don't want to go to college you know that are looking more for when I get out of high school I want to go straight into work you know about more of the the trades and I don't know how's that how's that program or how you working on the trades aspect of it? So we have students who are enrolled with us now through that, what I refer to is that I-TEM program, but we also are expanding those opportunities. And as we continue to do that, trying to work with our local schools so that students can take those classes while they're in high school because there's no tuition at that point. You know, the state covers the tuition. It allows them to go ahead and take the courses required. In many cases, if we have an industry partner who will work with someone who's under 18, then we can go ahead and even get them in the workplace. Some insurance companies in industry struggle with that, but we're continuing to push against that because students, one of the biggest challenges is if a student is looking at graduation and they're in their mind finished with school, getting them to come back and go through a skills training program is much more difficult. But if we can capture them and help them to complete those credentials while they're in high school, they enter the job market, commanding a higher wage and being better able to support themselves and their family going forward. So that's certainly our goal, our expectation is, that's where we'll see the biggest growth in high school student enrollment is in career pathways. Those are the students that are more difficult to capture and the ones that we are more aggressively recruiting. Yeah, that's good to hear from you. Absolutely, thank you. One of the reasons the new Allied Health Buildings is such a big deal for us is it's going to hear. Absolutely. Thank you. One of the reasons the new Allied Health Buildings is such a big deal for us is it's going to enable us to have the technology for these programs. The technology is just changing so rapidly. And we will have the facility in space to put in the latest technology to teach a lot of these courses that need it. Anything else to commissioners? No. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well there's nothing else. Worked commissioners I look for a motion to adjourn. Second motion. Second motion. Second. Any discussion? We're going to call a question. All only favor is you're right. He ain't any of the others like us. We are adjourned. Thank you. Jeremy. Without objection, we will stand adjourned. You're a nun. You're a nun.