In response to a surprising action item added to Tuesday’s LCC Board of Education agenda, LCCEA President Adrienne Mitchell has written a letter (below) to Board members calling for adherence to the law and multiple Board policies.

Esteemed Board of Education Members,

I’m writing to report concerns about information shared at the all-campus inservice and now included in an agenda item on your September 30 Board meeting.

It was reported yesterday that the Board of Education has approved a plan to cut $3M from the budget each and every year for the next three years. I have the great honor of attending all of your public meetings, including work sessions. I also carefully review your agenda items and decisions. I am grateful for the opportunity to observe the democratic process in action as you serve the public in your roles as elected Board of Education members. I have observed that there have been no votes of the Board to adopt $3M in budget cuts every year at any of these public meetings or public work sessions. As you likely know, Oregon has open meetings laws requiring Board decisions to be made in public, and for this reason, we know that a decision to make cuts for FY 27 or several years out has not been approved.

However, I did notice that there is now an item on the agenda for your meeting this coming Tuesday, September 30, which seeks your approval and decision to cut $3M from the budget every year for the next three years. This is one line found on page 6 of the 11-page powerpoint presentation, which seeks Board approval, posted on BoardDocs at: https://go.boarddocs.com/or/lanecc/Board.nsf/files/DLTU4T7A4805/$file/President’s%20Goals%2C%20Evaluation%20Standards%2C%20and%20Expectations%202025-26%20Final%209.3.2025.pdf.

In addition, you are likely aware of Oregon’s public budget law. I am including (see below) a presentation that the Administration members of the LCC’s Budget and Finance offices have presented, which includes the public budget law steps that are required for public institutions including LCC. In particular, please see page 3 which outlines a number of the important functions of Oregon public budget law, which includes, “Transparency with community input/involvment” and “estimate revenues and expenditures” – critical to any public governing body that must abide by our state’s budget law.

Specifically, please see pages 4 through 6, which outline all the steps required of public bodies in order to fulfill the obligations of Oregon Public Budget Law. These include establishment of a Budget Committee, preparation of a proposed budget, public notice of Budget Committee meetings, a public budget hearing with opportunity to “receive citizen testimony on the approved budget” and numerous steps that safeguard the public interest.

Given that the Board-level budget development process for FY27 is not even scheduled to begin for many months, and the budget development process for subsequent years is more than a year out, I am writing to urge you to take a thoughtful, deliberative, public approach to consideration of the college budget that is consistent with Oregon public budget law. Approving cuts before the budget development process even begins would subvert the statutorily required budget approval process.

Approving a request by the Administration to make unknown cuts to next year’s budget as well as multiple future years’ budgets also raises questions about adherence to numerous Board policies (e.g., 6105,  6110 , 6200,  6205 among others). This contravenes the public interest and would further undermine public trust in the institution that has not yet recovered from the sudden hiatus of the LPN program without a Board vote or public meeting before the decision was made.

In addition, please note that the budget during President Bulger’s has been successful in ensuring that revenues do exceed expenses. This bears out in the growing reserves of the ending fund balance. The FY23 and FY24 figures in the graph below come directly from the official audit statements (also linked), and the FY25 estimate was provided by the administrators of the Budget and Finance offices. These data from the external auditors and the Administration confirm that there is no structural deficit because revenues exceed expenses resulting in growth of reserves.

Finally, in order to fulfill your fiduciary responsibility, I encourage you to carefully review the assumptions upon which any future year’s forecasts are made. I will provide more detail regarding those forecasts in the upcoming days.

Thank you, as always, for your service to the people of Lane County.

Sincerely, 

Adrienne