The Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC) voted on its 2020-21 annual goals to strengthen the members’ knowledge of their roles and engage more with the campus community during its meeting on Thursday, Nov. 19.

The goals were listed alongside indicators and targets that the PBC members had to meet to complete the goal in a PowerPoint slide presented during the meeting.

Indicators will be used to track each PBC members’ progress until they reach the goal’s target. One concentrates on strengthening its members’ understanding and engagement levels in the college’s planning and budgeting processes.

According to the PowerPoint presented by Viviana Unda, PBC co-chair and director of Institutional Research and Planning, the goal’s target says that 100% of the committee members must participate in at least one planning and one budget training session.

“I think that this [goal] is more related to PBC members asking ‘can we know about [or] can we learn more about budget and planning?’” Unda said. “It’s a lot about learning and training.”

When trained in the planning area, Unda said that PBC members would have to know how planning is done at the institutional, area and division levels, as well as how strategic planning and comprehensive planning work.

“The college is really massive, so planning allows [us to see] how we can connect with other areas and be more efficient and effective in the ways in which we use our funding,” Unda said.

Two college planning and two state and college budgeting training sessions will be offered for the PBC members to attend throughout the year.

During the meeting, PBC member Josh Troesh commented on the recordings of future training sessions.

“Since we’re gonna be doing them through Zoom, for obvious reasons, I think it would be a good idea to just be in practice of recording those and saving the recordings,” Troesh said.

Once the training sessions have been recorded, the PBC plans on posting them on its website.

Another target that the PBC is working towards is their goal to engage the campus community to interact more with students. Unda stressed the importance of student feedback on information put out by the PBC.

“They have the right to know all this information and the right [and responsibility] to give input about information provided by PBC,” Unda said.

According to ECC Public Information Officer and Government Relations director Marc Stevens, student involvement is vital now more than ever because of challenges and difficulties from the pandemic and the state budget.

Stevens also emphasized the importance of the relationship between the school and its students. He said that the “end-user” for every process of the college is the students.

“Everything the college does, no matter what the program is, no matter what the committee is, ultimately it is for and about students,” Stevens said.

Editor’s note: Story and headline edited for clarity.