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Since July, when the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges placed Pasadena City College on academic probation citing nine recommendations that need to be met by next October, the college has been working on how to get off probation as quickly as possible.

The most crucial recommendation called for the college to create a planning system that drives the budget, instead of the ad-hoc budget development system currently in place. And now, it looks as if the school is ready to put their Integrated Budget Planning Model into place.

The model came from a draft developed this April with input from the planning committee as well as constituency groups college-wide and brings together the planning, program review, and resource allocation processes. The IBPM was revised several times throughout the summer before heading through the various shared governance committees in September.

“One of the big selling factors of this model is we’re not trying to create a model that lasts forever. We’re trying to create a model that is built on an understanding that every year we need to see how well it’s working,” said Ryan Cornner, associate vice president of strategic planning innovation.

“There’s no such thing as creating perfect,” Cornner continued. “We need to make sure that we create something that is built to change as our institutions need change.”

The model begins with the annual program reviews of each academic department or program. After evaluating the review, each dean or supervising manager will review any requests in the budget from faculty in their respective departments. The requests should be in line with PCC’s strategic plan, which sets up five broad goals for the school to focus on over three years.

From those requests, the model will prioritize any faculty hiring recommendations while all other requests will go to the president and executive directors to be ranked in order of importance.

The ranked list from the president then goes to the Annual Budget Retreat where shared governance committees such as the facilities standing committee and the budget resource allocation committee make their recommendations. This is the stage interested parties who feel their projects were not well prioritized can make their case to get funding.

Finally, the president finalizes the budget and it is presented campus-wide before approval by the Board of Trustees.

“It was not an easy task,” Vurdien said the Board of Trustees meeting last week. “This was perhaps the most difficult recommendation we received.”

It may not have been easy, but it is definitely a crucial development in PCC’s process to full accreditation without probation.

“Unless we have this plan approved by the various college groups and be implemented at least for one cycle, it would be almost impossible to have the sanction [removed],” said Vurdien.

The accreditation report also noted that the school needs a more collegiate working atmosphere, and the speed with which this model has gone through all the constituency groups may be a positive sign on that front.

“The collaboration and cooperation shown across the institution in getting this planning model approved is a clear indication that the institution is taking the accreditation recommendations seriously and doing the work that needs to be done,” said Kathy Scott, associate vice president of Academic Affairs.

“When it comes to the accreditation [progress],” said Vurdien, “I cannot be more pleased.”

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