CCC audit report comes up clean

During Wednesday's meeting the Clovis Community College board received a thumbs up regarding an audit report that closed out the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016.

"Big picture, you all have an unmodified or clean opinion on both your financial statements and your federal grants," Jaramillo Accounting Group Managing Partner Audrey Jaramillo said. "We did also issue a letter on your internal controls. We don't give you an opinion on your controls, but we are required to report to you anything that comes to our attention as far as control deficiencies, material weaknesses or significant deficiencies. I'm happy to report there weren't any. You have a great management team and they have been very responsive to any recommendations we have had. Having zero findings is quite the accomplishment."

Board member Russell Muffley extended kudos the staff's due diligence.

"I have been here a lot of years and I don't remember us having a completely clean slate, anytime," Muffley said. "There was always a finding of something. I would like to commend the entire group and committee for their work."

In other meeting actions:

• Board members granted approval for an upgrade of $138,045.94 for the Polycom Interactive Television (ITV) initiative. Officials said in 2015 the school was awarded two Department of Education Title V Developing Hispanic Servicing Institution grants, with both grants possessing focus on employing technology in the classroom to engage students, improve distance learning and increase retention and completion.

CCC President Becky Rowley said the Title V grants have provided funds that allow the college to expand and improve the ITV infrastructure - hence the purchase request of the Polycom RealPresence system.

"The technology has changed over the last few years and we'd like to keep the technology at the current level, not just for the students and faculty on our campus, but also at the sites we serve that are part of our ITV consortium," Rowley said. "The equipment becomes obsolete fairly quickly. It's come a long way since the 25 years we've been doing ITV. Now you can access it on your smartphone and things like that. It's pretty remarkable."

Officials said the upgrade would allow faculty members to record videos from their desktops and students to access the content from their own devices, as well as expand the number of live sessions that can occur simultaneously.

• Under an information-only agenda item the board received quarterly financial reports for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017. "One of the trends that we track very closely, is how do we spend our money," CCC Chief Financial Officer John Rush said. "Our spending is slightly, within $10,000 to $12,000, less than what it was at this time last year, despite the fact that we've had almost an 8 percent appropriation decrease. So, our spending is on target for where we need it to be right now. We're on target and healthy."