By Mark Hansel
NKYTribune managing editor
The first Board of Directors meeting for new Gateway Community and Technical College president Fernando Figueroa Thursday will surely be a memorable one, as his suggestion the board’s role is primarily “advocacy” met with pushback.
Board Chair Jeff Groob stepped down from the chairmanship and criticized Figueroa for not providing requested enrollment projections for the Gateway Transportation Technologies Center.
Gateway Chairman of the Board of Directors Jeff Groob (right) resigned from that role Thursday, but will remain on the board. Vice-Chair Ken Paul, left, assumes Groob’s role (photos by Mark Hansel).
Groob, who announced his resignation prior to the discussion of the Transportation Technologies Center, will remain a member of the Board of Directors.
Gateway announced the $3.9 million purchase of the former Robke Auto Dealer at 1051 Dudley Road in Fort Wright to house the programs, in April 2015.
“We built a $4 million campus. We put on the agenda a specific request for enrollment projections and all I heard was how lovely the building is,” Groob said. “It is not what we asked for (and) it is just embarrassing.”
Figueroa, whose first day on the job was August 1, said he misunderstood what information the board wanted and will provide it at a future meeting.
“I wasn’t aware of the level of detailed specificity you wanted,” Figueroa said. “I misunderstood your request, I’m owning that. As I understand it, we still need to provide that information and we are happy to do it.”
Groob scoffed at that suggestion.
“Which part of enrollment projections for transportation programs wasn’t clear?” he asked.
The bigger issue seems to be the ongoing disagreement about the role of the Board, which long preceded Figueroa’s hiring, but appears unresolved.
“I do want us to stay clear of the confusion over what the statutory limits of this board are,” Figueroa said. “It is to enhance and advance the role of the board as a voice in the community; to advocate for the college. I think that we need to talk about what are the elements that will help serve the advocacy focus of this particular board of directors.”
Figueroa also emphasized that as president, he is the sole authority on anything to do with the budget and that he has one boss, KCTCS President Jay Box.
“I want to make sure that you have the information that you need and the details that you need in order to advocate for the college,” Figueroa said. “I want to be careful that there is no even sense that there is a managerial or sense of assigning things.”
Light moments were hard to come by at Thursday’s Gateway CTC Board of directors meeting, but new president Fernando Figueroa shares a laugh with Board members here.
Board member Joseph Creaghead said that as the body that approves the budget, the Board has a responsibility to ask questions.
“If it gets approved, then it’s my expectation is that it gets followed during the course of the year and if it’s not going to be followed, I think we have a right to ask why and what’s being done about it,” Creaghead said. “When I ask for an update of the budget, all I’m asking is, how are we doing?”
Groob took exception to the statement that the Board is limited to an advocacy or advisory role.
“We have specific legal responsibilities, including recommendation and approval of the budget and hiring of the college’s chief executive officer. There is nothing advisory about those responsibilities,” Groob said. “We advocate for the college, but that is not the purpose of the board. Our purpose is to have serious strategic discussions about where the college is and where it’s going.”
In May, the Board of Directors approved the budget for the current year with the stipulation that a list of question regarding its contents would be provided.
Those answers were presented at Thursday’s meeting, but the larger question of the Board’s role and the limits of its responsibilities remains unclear.
Groob said that as the representatives and the voice of the community, the Board has an institutional role to ensure that the college is responsive to the needs of the community and to students.
“A group of part time, unpaid volunteers, that’s us, will always be at a disadvantage in working with full-time professionals who have unlimited access to the information,” Groob said. “On some level, we are supposed to monitor (and) approve a budget with the information provided from the people we are supposed to be holding accountable. That’s a tough place to be.”
He added that a publicly funded institution that decides what information to share with its board of directors is doing a disservice to the community.
“A college that selectively or grudgingly shares information with its board of directors cannot be trusted,” Groob said. “We straddle the line. . .between being an insider and an outsider. We have to understand and have empathy for the complexity inside, but we have to maintain the perspective of an outsider who is concerned with results and not degree of difficulty.”
That is why he said it is critical to get enrollment projections for the Transportation Technologies Center.
“If we invest in a $4 million campus in Fort Wright, what is the impact on our Covington campus? he asked. “I’m embarrassed to have to answer why we decided to take (from) our $80 million Covington campus and spend $4 million on a building in Fort Wright, when nobody even knows how many students we’re going to have.”
“As a board member, you’d like to be able, with some high level knowledge to say, in that program over there we have an average of 100 students per semester and in the next five years, we should have a couple thousand,” Paul said. “It is upsetting at times because there’s a lot of money invested there. We can’t be everything to everybody and since there is not an unlimited budget, we’ve got to watch where the dollar goes at a high level.”
Groob ended on a positive note, saying he is proud and humbled by the seriousness with which the Board has served during his tenure. He praised the board for its persistence and diligence, which he said has uncovered examples of self-dealing and abuse of the public trust.
“We pulled on a thread that unspooled and led to a whole lot of different places,” Groob said. “The challenge for our new president. . .is to avoid being captured and co-opted by the bureaucracy that signs his paycheck. I believe and hope that Dr. Figueroa is up to the task; it is certainly why I supported his selection.”
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com
