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View the legislative bills report here. (updated July 12, 2024)
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July 26, 2024
With the Legislature still enjoying its summer recess, it was another slow week in Sacramento. However, the Board of Governors (BOG) did meet on Monday afternoon and discussed several issues. We provide a summary of the meeting below.
July 22, 2024, BOG Meeting
During Monday’s BOG meeting, the Board approved a resolution permitting the Chancellor to take necessary action to enact the Department of Finance’s (DOF) proposal to fund community college student housing projects via lease-revenue bonds, as noted in agenda Item 4.4.
The DOF proposed shifting the student housing project to a Lease Revenue Bond Structure in order to recognize revenue decline, rather than the initial grant program that provided community colleges the opportunity to apply for a grant over a three-year period. This proposal took effect pursuant to Senate Bill (SB) 155, the higher education budget trailer bill for the 2024-25 State Budget. Under SB 155, the BOG acts as an intermediary between participating community colleges and the State Public Works Board (PWB), with administrative duties to implement the bond program. To align with legislative requirements, there must be three simultaneous agreements between the BOG, participating college (PC), and PWB to develop the housing project. In the lease process, the PWB first leases the site from the BOG, leases it back to the BOG, and finally the BOG leases it back to the PC (i.e., lease-backing). The BOG makes payments to secure the bond with appropriations every year from the state.
In addition, Item 4.5 was passed as a resolution to adopt a Digital Center for Innovation, Equity, and Transformation within the California Community Colleges (CCC) under the Chancellor. In regard to the advancement of modern technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), there has been a growing need to bridge the gap between the industrial and digital world, especially in educational content, delivery, and administration. This center is aimed at keeping up with the pace of the fast-changing world, to ensure equity across student populations, and increase operational efficiencies. The intent is to build systemwide data sharing capacity that focuses on date security, integrity, and privacy. Staffing of the center would consist of an administrative director and innovation leads that will direct innovation projects. For example, the project “Lightleap.ai” is a power project that uses AI to identify fraudulent financial aid applications to save more seats for real students. It is hopeful that with AI, identifying fraud clusters and activities that humans cannot see will be much faster and easier for technicians. If fraud is found once, it is identified across all institutions and will inform systemwide solutions, so that each CCC is not chasing the same solution.
For more details regarding the July BOG meeting, please find the full agenda here.
