Mandilee Gonzales: And OK, well, yeah, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this Tuesday morning, almost lunchtime. Truly appreciate you being here with us. This is our Carryover Compliance webinar in partnership with our NOCE CAEP TAP. We would like to say thank you to our CDE members that are here with us, Diana Batista-- I don't know who else is in the room-- as well as the Chancellor's Office. I believe Mayra Diaz will be with us at some point, and then we have Sanjay Mehta, along with Josh, with KAI. So we really appreciate you guys being here. We're here to support you, and we hope that you find the information we share today valuable. And with that, we're just going to go over the agenda, and I'll kick it over to Dulce.

Dulce Delgadillo: Hi. Great. Hi, everybody. So we're going to go ahead and cover a couple of things over the hour that we have together. So we're going to go ahead and do quick introductions of our presenters. We're going to go over what is the current situation with carryover, where were we, and where are we now. We're going to go over now, moving forward. We've been doing this work over the last year or so. And so what does moving forward look like? What are some tools that you can take home to your own consortia that will be helpful in this context?

So we'll also go over some best practices that have been happening on the ground and some tools that we can give you and help through these processes at the consortium level. And then we're going to hear from the experts, which is from our own colleagues, as to some of their experiences and tools that they've used that has been helpful within their consortiums in order to address carryover. Next slide.

So my name is Dulce Delgadillo. I am the Director of Institutional Research and Planning at North Orange Continuing Education. And my other hat is a co-lead for the CC TAP team at NOCE.

Mandilee Gonzales: And I'm Mandilee Gonzalez. I'm Coordinator here for CAEP TAP at Sacramento County Office of Education.

Ute Maschke: Good morning, everyone. Ute Maschke. I'm a Technical Assistance Provider Member for NOCE and CC TAP.

Holly Clark: And good morning, everyone. I am Holly Clark, Project Specialist with CAEP TAP at Sacramento County Office of Education.

Ute Maschke: All right, thanks again for joining us this morning. We wanted to start with sharing the state of things. This will look familiar to many of you.

The carryover legislation came out in February 23, actually, based on a CAEP memo that was released in June 2021, reminding us all of member effectiveness and how to measure it and providing some guidance on which steps to take next. Based on that memo, AB 1491 was released, as I said in February 23, authorizing a consortium to reduce a member's allocation with some conditions. And those conditions are important and very helpful, guiding us through this process.

First condition, the reduction can never be more than the amount of the member's carryover-- you see the language there-- as defined, if the consortium makes a finding by a majority vote. As the language suggests, this has a certain domino effect. So majority vote, as defined, already points to bylaws and other guidance in place for each consortium. There was no specific threshold mandated.

There is no specific threshold mandated by AB 1491. However, for the consortium overall-- and that's on the next slide-- there's a threshold, as you know, of 20%. The carryover from one or more prior fiscal years exceeding 20% triggers a written expenditure plan that needs to be in place for the consortium, as specified. And we'll talk about this in a moment, what is new for this year.

The education codes, we summarized for you, or we listed for you there. When this originally came out in 2023, the Chancellor's Office also provided us with a timeline when to craft these expenditure plans, when to submit them, and when to follow up on them. We linked out to this timeline, as you can see on the slide.

Similarly to what happened in '23-'24, we now have a timeline for this current cycle for those consortia who are asked and required to submit a written expenditure plan. We would like to provide you with a brief snapshot of that timeline. It's on the next slide.

You see in red font there that the due date for this expenditure plan is November 15. Until then, TAP is here to support you in developing this plan, developing a budget aligned with this plan, and develop action items. As we said on the very top of this webinar, we are here to support you in collaborating on these expenditure plans, on forging even stronger collaboration, stronger projects that help to support our students and keep programming.

We are on the right path as the group of 71 consortia. We wanted to provide you also with a brief snapshot of what it looks like right now on the next slide. You see what has happened over the last two years. We're focusing here on quarter '24-'25 for expenditure plans executed for equity, accountability, and visibility. Visible clearly is that we are making progress. As you can see, the number of consortia with carryover dropped significantly, and that is due to best practices that we want to review with you before we open it up to conversation about other best practices.

Visibility matters, right? We have shown over the last year that we can do this, that we can reduce our carryover and spend it in meaningful ways to support our students. So what does it exactly look like for us this year, for those who might be on this for the first time, or for those of us who might be on an expenditure plan requirement for a second time? Mandilee.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you. I was looking for my Mute button. So moving forward, as Ute mentioned, really what happens in NOVA is you're triggered to write a written expenditure plan. It's really brief. I'm not going to go into all of the details, but we will just do a broad overview of what those questions look like.

So moving forward, when you log into NOVA, you're going to see a flag at the top. Well, it really is just a button that just says, move to your written expenditure plan. It'll look just like what's down here at the bottom.

The written expenditure plan is due on November 15 at 5:00 PM. November 15 of this year does fall over the weekend. So anytime the 15th falls on a weekend, the due date will then shift to the upcoming Monday. So for this year, that looks like the 17th of November. If you have any questions, you can always let us know. But generally speaking, the due date for written expenditure plan moving forward, November 15 at 5:00 PM. So can't say it enough. [laughs]

And then from last year to this year, it has been a learning curve for all of us. We supported all of the consortia that were flagged last year with their written expenditure plan. I want to note that your written expenditure plan is reviewed at the state level. So we have the Chancellor's Office as well as the CDE, as well as the TAPs here in the room, reviewing those plans so we can best support you and what that looks like.

There were some slight modifications to the questions. There are nine questions in total, but I want to say three of those questions aren't elaborate. And I apologize because it looks like there was some formatting errors when I downloaded this from our original document. So I will definitely get this updated and sent off to you guys.

But I want to just say that the questions really talk about how you're going to-- I'm just going to stay here. The questions really go over how are you going to create an actionable plan to spend down your carryover. Your carryover is calculated on a one-year allocation basis, and it's not connected to your total funding budget. So I just want to share that with you.

And then we will help support you in how you create a timeline that's actionable so you can move forward, and spending that down at the summit. Some of you are there. Some may not have been. And I want to say that the NOCE team really created just a great analogy about approaching carryover in a healthy way. You have it like a triage, where we can help those immediate needs. But then we also have to think of that long-term sustainable health.

So we'll help you through all of those parts, not only with the written expenditure plan but then throughout the year. And I will move forward. I'm sorry about the slides, you guys. And then, Holly, if you want to start us off with our best practices.

Holly Clark: Sure. So as Mandilee mentioned, preventative care. We can always triage what has happened, and that's where you contact us and we work through the WEP process with you. But let's talk about that preventative care for a moment.

So an important best practice is in creating your processes and procedures. You will want the timeline to be solid and to allow for proposed changes to be identified, implemented, and still allow time for the remaining funds to be spent. Some consortia start a review once Q2 is certified. This allows the members to see where they are halfway through the year and, knowing what activities they have remaining for the year, be able to make an informed decision if they are on track to spend 80% of their allocation.

If they're not, they may want to reallocate any portion of their funds while still allowing the member who's going to be receiving those funds, or members, time to make purchases before the end of Q4. We know that making purchases, entering into contracts, creating POs, those are all processes that take time. So you want to ensure that they have the time to do that on their end before their end of Q4 hits.

The next thing that we have is really create a member expense tracker. And I will say that this is a bit of wisdom from our room. Shannon Eller with the Adult Education Pathways developed a member expense tracker. Each member must submit their exact expenses each quarter, and it's down to the penny. And then they submit that to the lead. That is compared to NOVA. And if the total is $2 or more off from NOVA, a deep dive is performed to locate and correct the discrepancy.

It has been beneficial to them in finding errors before the end of the year and being able to correct them. It's also a great way to have checks and balances. This process has allowed them to reallocate funds if a member possibly has excess and another member is in need.

So this will be linked when we create-- when we remediate the PowerPoint, this is linked in the document. And you're able to customize that to yourself and have one tab for each member if you would like to implement this as part of your preventative care. Maintaining carryover compliance really means staying informed on member fund balances and may mean allowing time to move and spend funds, if necessary, to remain in compliance. And with that, we can move on.

Dulce Delgadillo: Thank you, Holly. Yeah, so really, the purpose of today is to give you all tools and some resources in order to see what is this potentially look like within your own consortiums, within your own institutions. And so now we want to talk a little bit about best practices. So Holly shared a very valuable tool-- the member expense tracker. We do something very similar at North Orange County Regional Consortium, where every month, our expense trackers are presented to all of our consortium members. So it's a really good tool to just keep everybody informed.

And so what we have found, as we've been looking at the practices that a lot of consortia are executing across the state, is that best practices really fall under some three main buckets that have really helped consortia to move forward on how to spend down those funds and/or how to allocate policies and bylaws that will help support staying in compliance and being able to spend down those funds.

So the first one is really formalizing governance structures. So incorporating carryover policies in your bylaws-- what does that look like? Let's start at your bylaws in your consortium. How does it cover member effectiveness? How does it cover any carryover? Has it covered any? And what does that process look like in order to refine bylaws at a consortium level in order to take into account these changes that are coming down the pipeline legislatively?

So making sure there's clear procedures on how members are carrying over those thresholds, how you're monitoring any tools that you're using, such as an expense tracker, or just the general term of-- we are tracking expenses. We know tools are changing on a daily-- sometimes, for us, with technology changing on every minute, it seems like. But just incorporating into your bylaws those processes that are in place to ensure that you are in compliance and that that money is being spent across the consortium.

And then also, a kind of in alignment with this expense tracker is promoting transparency and accountability. We all function within some level form as a public agency, within shared governance laws, within each of our realms in which we are dealing with. At a consortium level, we have to take that same approach. That's why we abide by the Brown Act. That's why we make sure that our consortium meetings and our board meetings are publicly accessible.

So let's incorporate that fund tracking and make it digestible as well. Especially me being a data person, I know numbers scare people. So how can you make it friendly and institutionalized in this process, on a regular basis, that you are having a conversation around finances at a consortium level?

And then the last one is monitoring and reviewing member effectiveness. We've had a couple of discussions as a state as to how are we defining member effectiveness and rolling out several tools in terms of how to measure effectiveness of each member. But this is also part of that component of tracking those expenses and making sure that members are allocating or being allocated funds in a reasonable manner and therefore also spending funds in a reasonable manner.

At a 50% within your budget, have you spent 50% of your budget? What does that look like, and what tools are you using in order to ensure that you are on track for spending that budget by multiple partners and then by a consortium as a whole? Next slide, please.

So the first one I want to highlight is some great work that's been out, that was shared at the CAEP Summit last two weeks ago by our colleague Rick Abare, who is the director of South Bay Consortium for Adult Education. So he's provided a great model as to what his consortium has done in order to address carryover. And so this is really through an establishment of an innovation fund.

So I've heard innovation fund through a variety of things. I've done it with some research funds we've seen. And it's essentially-- we also have a project, actually, at our district, at North Orange Community College District, where there is these funds that are used for innovation projects. So it can be potentially launching a new student service, potentially using it as seed money for maybe a laptop lending program or Wi-Fis. You can go down the rabbit hole for anything.

But essentially, what they did is, in spring of 2023, they created this as a means to be able to allow their members to request access to consortium funds for their own innovation funds. So where did these funds come from? Essentially, they come from unspent consortium-wide funds. These can be anything from open positions, hiring late, timelines, shifting in organizational infrastructure. We could go on and on as to why these funds exist.

But essentially, it's doing something and establishing a process within his consortium to be able to say, OK, if these funds haven't been spent, this is what we're going to do with them. Can we all agree with that? And so they were successfully able to adopt a governance and an approval process to be able to formally review and formally vote on any projects that were requesting to use these innovation funds.

These innovation funds sometimes included carryovers, funds, and some of them, they were just self-identified unspendable member carryover money that was used. And so really, what it allowed them to do is to push money into things that were prioritizing the goals of the consortium.

So one of the things that they very much encouraged was cross-collaboration-- cross-collaboration across partners and in establishing pathways. Well, guess which innovation funds and innovation projects got higher points. Those that encouraged member collaboration and that prioritized and aligned those projects with what the priorities were of the consortium itself.

So pretty much, you know, we will be releasing because Rick did have a PowerPoint. So we will definitely be sharing that PowerPoint that has some great ideas as to some of the innovation funds that they were able to use, how they embedded that idea from inception into adoption into their bylaws, and just some of the fun things and innovative things that they've been doing as they've established this innovation fund that has not only allowed them to fund seed money for these side projects but also really incentivize member collaboration by being able to say, hey, this is a priority for us. We're going to embed it into our bylaws, we're going to have everybody have a buy-in, and we're going to prioritize collaboration.

Mandilee Gonzales: And so, Dulce, I'm also just tacking on to that. So Rick did share a member budget report tool when I was speaking with him about today's webinar. And he said it would be OK to share with everyone here.

Dulce Delgadillo: Great.

Mandilee Gonzales: So I am popping that into the chat as well for everyone here.

Dulce Delgadillo: Yeah, so exactly how we said those three tenets-- transparency, a tool that you're able to share this out with them, institutionalizing it within your bylaws, and then encouraging that collaboration aspect. So he's definitely hit all three of those, so round of applause for SBCAE.

Mandilee Gonzales: All right, so I think we're going to shift and move to-- also inviting some wisdom from our colleagues that are here in the room. And I do see that we have a couple of questions that we'll definitely address. Ute, do you want to kick us off a little bit here?

Ute Maschke: Absolutely. Yes, we are. I think the power is with all of us sharing best practices. As the example from Rick just showed it's the best way to move forward. Rick also shared with us this has been a long process. They started this right after the bill came out. So to create that kind of transparency, collaboration-- and innovation fund took a moment there, too. But definitely worth doing.

And we would not have learned about this had he not shared that at the summit. So I'm sure the ones on the call here also have some suggestions, ideas, best practices to share with us. If not, please feel free to also share questions or concerns.

Mandilee Gonzales: So there is one question in the chat. I'm just going to read it off. It looks from V. Gomez. "Do these recommendations/suggestions need to be part of our consortium bylaws?" I was starting to write a response in the chat, but I thought I would start with just responding to you verbally.

I think it is best to have the right bylaws in place that provide you with a firm structure. So when you have foundational structure in place to navigate these hard conversations-- because they become hard conversations when money is involved. That way, as things arise or things change, you'll have those bylaws that you can fall back on.

So when we're talking about what are we going to do with carryover, I think it's helpful to say, yes, this is how we're going to address the carryover at a member level. This is what we're going to do at a consortia level. And having some type of process and protocol that everybody agrees to and will adhere to will allow for these difficult conversations to be a lot easier, hopefully, and then get you to a healthy spending plan.

Ute Maschke: And there has to be a vote, right? So the legislation makes clear that this has to be an agreed-upon mechanism and depends on the vote by members. So bylaws are the place where you clarify how you reach consensus.

Dulce Delgadillo: Yeah, and I would be nimble. I would let them be nimble. And what I mean by that is it may not always be an innovation fund. You may find yourself needing money for something else down the line. And so at that point-- so what I mean, be nimble, is exactly how Ute had said, which is maybe establish a process where every year, you will be voting on what those funds will be used on. And don't give it such a strict parameter of, "It will always be this." But give it more of a flexibility as to, "It could potentially be these, but we will vote on it." Because you also have to take external variables as to what are your priorities, where are your institutions at, where's the consortium at-- all of those other moving pieces.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yeah, now, that's a great point, Dulce. I think that some of this-- there are some strong bylaws out there. And if you are interested in reviewing your bylaws, you can definitely reach out to the TAPs.

One of the consortium that we talk about often-- and they've highlighted, and they've shared. Not only is it LARAEC, but then also our South Orange Consortium. They've come together multiple times prior to AB 1491, the carryover compliance pledge, coming into action. But they reworked their bylaws to be very transparent to have those structural foundations. But then to your point, Dulce, let's revisit this every year or every two years with the understanding that you do have to be nimble, the landscape does change, as well as our region.

So are there anyone here with us today that might have maybe some insights, some things that they've done with carryover compliance? Or are there just questions? I'm here in the room because this is maybe your second year of getting flagged. Perhaps this is your first year of getting flagged. Shannon. Thank you for your tool, by the way.

Shannon Eller: Just going to expand on that a little bit. Having bylaws is really great to have in the event that you can share that with fiscal staff. So a lot of times, as the lead, we're working with the members. But the reason that I implemented that tool that you shared was because, unfortunately, our fiscal staff aren't attending the CAEP webinars. So it's me who's reaching out, trying to get the information.

Sometimes, the members are not attending webinars or trainings or things like that. So again, as the lead of the consortium, I've made it my job to make sure that the training gets done. I share all the resources that CAEP offers-- and we're so thankful for all of that.

However, in our small consortium, I mean, my members are superintendents, principals, superintendent/principal, instructors, so it's kind of crazy, and unfortunately, Adult Ed gets put on the back burner sometimes. So by implementing this tool, I've developed really great connections with the fiscal staff, and now they're really trained on how to get the expenses in.

And we've had instances before where maybe I've already certified the year, so now you can't reopen it at the end of the year. Well, they got a refund-- you know that, obviously-- I didn't know about after that. So it's been really handy to be like, wait, why are we off? Why do you have carryover that's like $10,000 more than what NOVA'S saying? And we go back to that tool, and we're like, OK, so it's in the 5,000s. What happened? And then they go into their books and see, oh, we got a refund of $10,000 because of whatever it was.

So those little things can really destroy future years in NOVA, and it's impossible to track in NOVA what actually happened. So having that tool to be able to really drill down and see what happened has been helpful for me, obviously, because really, they can put whatever they want in those object codes, and I would never know in detail what that is. And then it's helped them because the fiscal staff that I work with, they have a bajillion programs that they have to keep track of. And again, unfortunately, Adult Eds, they're probably one of their smallest programs, so they're not thinking about it all the time.

Anyways, all that to say, I highly recommend that you have something in your bylaws for sure but also that you have maybe a simple little tracker like this for yourself as the lead. So that way, you can balance with their books, with that tracker, and then with NOVA so that there's three different places to be all balanced up.

And again, some people find it a little bit annoying, I suppose, but at the end of the day, when there are errors, it's been so helpful and saved us so much time. And again, quarter by quarter, we're like, OK, where are we with our percentage on carryover? So then we can move funds around pretty quickly if we need to. Sorry about the rambling. It's just been really helpful, so I highly--

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you.

Shannon Eller: --recommend it.

Ute Maschke: But it's a beautiful summary, I think, of best practices. Thank you for sharing this. I appreciate that you point out that accounting and budgeting work differently depending on which school or college you're at. So in a way, carryover is also a beautiful catalyst to start talking about these different methods of tracking and of being held accountable and forge collaboration that way. So thank you for sharing all of that.

And also, for me, it's a helpful step to consider when we are thinking about annual plans, fiscal declarations, strategic planning. You can use that simple but not simplistic tool to start a lot of other conversations.

Mandilee Gonzales: Well, yeah, and I think-- and Mayra popped in the chat-- the annual CFAD and annual plan updates also provide those opportunities, to your point, to have those conversations. And in the CFAD itself, it provides the opportunity as a consortium to come together about defining what does member effectiveness look like. How are you going to deal with those carryover pieces? So it is an opportunity there to revisit or elaborate on these same discussions. And sometimes, it's just baby steps. Let's acknowledge the carryover in the room and then start moving from there.

Holly Clark: And I do feel that, as Shannon mentioned, possibly not all members were ecstatic about having to fill out this tracker. So it would be really important to start with your bylaws. That's going to probably be the place where you want to have something written in your bylaws and have it voted in an agreement because then it doesn't matter on their mood that day or how busy they are that week or that month. If it's in the bylaws, then it's something that needs to happen. So I think always going back to your bylaws is an important starting point when you start looking at what you can do and what you can implement to assist with carryover.

Shannon Eller: One more thing to just add. It's also helpful, too. If you are one of those agencies that has carryover pretty frequently, that, again, if there's a mistake-- or not necessarily a mistake, but if there's something that comes up when you can't recertify. So like Mayra said, it's just a reporting tool. Well, NOVA doesn't know that there's $10,000 refund, right? But maybe you have carryover.

So in your written expenditure plan, you can say, hey, there actually was a carryover due to X, Y, and Z, due to this refund. So that way, if you are targeted to have help from CAEP or whatever, then you can say, well, actually, we weren't over whatever because of this thing that happened.

Holly Clark: Yes, thank you. I think that's great. We cannot emphasize enough-- notate, notate. The more information you can provide to us, the better we are positioned to provide that assistance and guidance for you.

Mandilee Gonzales: There's another question-- I'll read it out loud-- from Victor Gomez. "I am new to our three consortia, COE. Do most agencies have their agency reps submit their budget and work plan or as a collaborative effort with their fiscal person/department?"

Shannon Eller: So I can share what I know from this. From working with the field, Victor, I can tell you that a lot of agencies have their financial department build out the budget portion of their budget work plan. They do not submit it. They just simply plug in the numbers. And then they work in tandem with you, who will be doing the work plan section and doing the submitting, and they can answer any questions you may have about what amount is where and why. So it is a partnership between the fiscal and financial department and the member representative that I have witnessed more of.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yes, and thank you, Shannon, for chiming in. Shannon says, "For us, I tell our fiscal and member rep to work together so they are on the same page." So we've talked a lot a bit about bylaws, about tools. Are there any other questions or words of wisdom, experiences that anyone would like to come off mute or put in the chat and share with us today? OK.

Dulce Delgadillo: Well, also, take lessons learned of "This for sure didn't work."

[laughter]

Mandilee Gonzales: Exactly.

Dulce Delgadillo: If you have any tools that you said, we tried this, and it did not work, those are also lessons learned, right?

Mandilee Gonzales: Mm-hmm. I like to say you fail forward. It didn't work. Now, we try something different. [laughs]

Dulce Delgadillo: Exactly.

Mandilee Gonzales: All right, well, I'm going to continue to move us along. But while this opportunity to talk to one another doesn't stop here, you can always reach out to us on email. You can submit a support request. All of those pieces-- we're always here and available to respond to an email, to get on a phone call, to get on a Zoom. For those that have been flagged, we will be reaching out to you, and we'll be connecting with you in a one-on-one opportunity.

We do have some of our webinars here. If you would like, you can scan. This is the CAEP Technical Assistance Project event page for upcoming webinars. The links that were shared earlier are going to be on this slide deck. And when we remediate and share out, you'll have access to those links as well.

As mentioned, you can always submit a support request. And if it's a support request, it can go to either one of us, our NOCE partners as well as your SCOE partners here, we will make sure that you get the best person to help support you with whatever the question is.

And for our CC TAP partners, this is how you can request support from them. This QR code will take you directly to their email, and you can ask any questions there. Now, if you would like to direct email, we have Dulce Delgadillo as well as Lisa Mednick Takami. Their email addresses and phone numbers are there. That's so kind of them-- and their phone number. [laughs] I'm sure they get lots of calls.

And that is going to do it for us here. We really thank you guys for spending this time with us, especially as we are really just ramping into fall. Feel free to reach out to us at any time. We're always here to support you. And again, like I said, for those of you who have been flagged, you'll be receiving an email from our teams shortly to connect with you one-on-one. Have a great afternoon.

And, Holly, you're muted if you were trying to share something.

Holly Clark: I was. I was. I dropped some links in the chat, and I do see that the bottom one got cut off of the registration link. But we have some upcoming events that you may find helpful, and we hope to see you join for those. This one's going to look a little messy. There you go. There's the registration link for that last one. So please do take a moment to fill out the evaluation that was posted in the chat, as well as to look at our upcoming events and register for anything that might be of interest to you.

And I just would like to say to Dulce, Mandilee, thank you for today's session. For the attendees, thank you for spending your morning with us. And then, Mandilee, do you want to bring us home?

Mandilee Gonzales: I'm done. That sounds great. All right, everyone, have a great day. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Holly Clark: All right, bye-bye.