May 12, 2022: Administrative Services

Area Report for Board of Trustees

One of our major goals for the current fiscal year is to exercise due diligence to ensure the fiscal stability of Highline College. The third quarter financial report is being submitted for the Board to review. Expenditure is estimated to be under budget by yearend. Revenue while projected to be short of target is being supplemented by the remaining federal stimulus funds. Consequently, we expect to finish the fiscal year with a net surplus.
The State Auditor’s Office is continuing with the on-going annual financial statement audit. While the process has taken place much later than previous years, we are still expecting for the auditors to complete their work by late May.
Stabilization of ctcLink is another primary goal for our Finance & Budget teams this year. While significant progresses have been made, we are still very much in learning mode. In addition, staffing turnover is also affecting our abilities to provide services to the college community under ctcLink.

With two major capital projects, the Welcome Center and the Academic Pathways buildings, coming up in the next few years, Highline College will need to update our Campus Master Plan with the City of Des Moines. We are planning to launch the process in the next couple of months in order to align with the development of the College Strategic Planning process.
Facilities Department continues to support the campus in the returning-to-campus phase with regular cleaning and distribution of PPEs.

As part of our continuing efforts to provide a safe and clean learning and working environment, Public Safety hosted a second campus cleanup event on April 28th to bring awareness to Public Safety Crime Prevention programs. We believe a well-maintained campus sends the message that students, faculty and staff notice and care what happens here.
David Menke and Francesca Fender attended the training offered by FEMA P-154 Rapid Visual Screening of Buildings for Potential Seismic Hazards. This training covered methods and processes that enable personnel to rapidly identify, inventory, and screen local buildings according to their expected safety and usability during and after earthquakes. Public Safety and Facilities can use this data to plan and prioritize further engineering and vulnerability analysis, emergency-response needs, and mitigation projects.
Public Safety continues to lead the COVID-19 contact tracing team for Highline College. While we have seen an increase in cases for Spring Quarter 2022, the number is comparable with the increases seen in King County and the local community.

On Wednesday, April 13th, 33 students from Highline College, Tacoma Community College, and North Seattle College participated in a Virtual Follow the Supply Chain Study Abroad program where they learned about the latest changes in the global supply chain here in Washington state. On April 27th, these same students will be participating in the second session, which will primarily focus on Vietnam. Highline College is the main host of these virtual sessions.
Twelve Highline College students participated in the Global Solutions Sustainability Challenge Program, where we virtually partnered with students from Salahaddin University in Kurdistan, Iraq to develop a sustainable solution to challenges in our communities. We developed the “Rainwater Harvesting Umbrella” in order to address the water shortages faced by people around the world, but specifically in Erbil, Kurdistan. Our bi-national team won the second-place award of $1,500 which can be put towards efforts to further develop our project.

The bookstore plans to have a Graduation Fair on May 26th for graduates to purchase caps and gowns.

Report submitted April 29, 2022, by Vice President Dr. Michael Pham