Financial academic accomplishments from the 2017 to 2018 school year were presented to El Camino College’s Board of Trustees (BOT) on Monday, August 26.

Vice President of Administrative Services, Iris Ingram, presented achievements from the previous year to have the BOT members have a better understanding of how the new $422 million budget for the 2019 to 2020 school year would be spent.

“We have seen improvement from last year’s budget, and this year we have $4 million more than last year [in the general fund reserve],” Ingram said.

Some of the most recent accomplishments in the Administrative Services has been the construction of the new Student Services Building as well as the design that is set to take place for the old Student Services Building and the Student’s Activity Center, Ingram added.

“We have also completed the plans and seeking bids for the demolition of the Student Services and Student Activities buildings. That will be a major project starting in December,” Ingram said. “We will be fencing off the middle of the campus.”

As for other construction updates, according to the Accomplishments from the Fiscal Year 2018-2019 powerpoint, construction plans have moved along for the Administration Building, Pool/ Classroom Building, Student Services Center Building and the new Gymnasium, as well as a cafe in the Bookstore.

Also highlighted in the presentation was a new program that started in the spring 2019 semester called Cranium Cafe, through which students can get counseling services online. Student Trustee Lindsey Lee said there could be some improvements in the system.

“A big issue regarding the Cranium Cafe is that it isn’t always available for students because it gets full so fast,” Lee said. “I sometimes have to tell students to make appointments in person because they can make an appointment for weeks in advance.”

However, Ross Miyashiro would like to use Cranium Cafe as a full-time program at EC.

“Counseling in the past has been ‘Here are the services if you can find us we’ll give it to you,’ but we don’t do that anymore,” Miyashiro said. “Cranium Cafe is your personal, private counseling appointment.”

Miyashiro’s plan is by the year 2021 or 2022 all student services will be in Cranium Cafe, which can be reached through Canvas so all students can have remote access to various student services.

“If the plan is to use all student services through Cranium Cafe, then we need to improve upon the availability,” Lee said. “The services are available 24 hours, seven days a week, however, a student will probably not want to be awake at midnight for an appointment.”

With Cranium Cafe being part of the 2017 to 2018 budget, Miyashiro does plan on improving the services as well as make it easier for students to turn in documents like FAFSA and transcripts.

“There will be additional adjustments to the budget throughout the year, but I can say with some confidence that we started this school year of 2019 to 2020 in good shape,” Ingram said.

Updated Wednesday, Sept. 4, at 3:11 p.m. for accuracy.