IMPERIAL — Officials at Imperial Valley College have been hard at work prioritizing and assessing the 73 recommendations given to them by the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assessment Team on Monday evening.
The extensive list of recommendations serves as a road map to ensure the fiscal health of the college during dire financial times.
School officials could not estimate when the recommendations would become changes considering the newness of the report.
“At this point, we are taking every recommendation into consideration,” said Victor Jaime, college president. “We asked to be assessed because we wanted a critical analysis performed by professional eyes. Therefore we have to consider every recommendation that was made.”
A campus advisory committee was created to help make sense of each recommendation and how it can potentially benefit the college, Jaime said.
“These individuals were tapped to help advise me with recommendations because I believe they can be as objective as possible,” Jaime said.
Starting next week, the Strategic Transition Action Response Team will begin to systematically address each recommendation, which have been grouped into eight categories.
With the help of the START committee, the college hopes to develop a comprehensive plan of action that will ensure the recommendations do not go to waste.
“There are a lot of expectations tied to the report,” said John Lau, vice president of Business Services. “Because they provided funding, the state is heavily invested as is the school.”
Because the college acquired the services of FCMAT as a preventative measure, the California Community College Board of Governors incurred a majority of the $215,000 cost.
“This is the first time the state has made this sort of investment,” Lau said. “That will definitely play into what we do and how we do it. The No. 1 priority will be to continue to fulfill our mission to the community and the students in a cost effective manner.”
Staff Writer Karina Lopez can be reached at 760-337-3439 or klopez@ivpressonline.com
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