Report 2020-104 Recommendation 6 Responses

Report 2020-104: Calbright College: It Must Take Immediate Corrective Action to Accomplish Its Mission to Provide Underserved Californians With Access to Higher Education (Release Date: May 2021)

Recommendation #6 To: Calbright College

To adequately address its foundational purpose for existing, Calbright should immediately develop a robust implementation plan that aligns with best practices and translates its mission into actionable goals and strategies. It should complete that plan and begin implementing it by November 2021. At a minimum, Calbright should include in its implementation plan all of the following:

1. Its goals, which should include both its goals for completing the setup of the college and its student outcome goals. It should develop its student outcome goals based, at a minimum, on a comparison of the student outcomes for multiple other reasonably comparable educational programs.

2. The major steps necessary to achieve its goals.

3. The estimated resources and specific deliverables that each step will require.

4. The due dates and assigned staff for each deliverable or major step.

5. The criteria it will use for measuring its success and monitoring its progress.

6. A strategy and timeline for ending its reliance on the Foundation.

After completing its implementation plan, Calbright should review the plan at least every six months, and revise and update it as needed to account for major changes relevant to the college's implementation. By July 2022, Calbright should demonstrate that it has made consistent progress in implementing its plan.

To improve its accountability for its actions toward fulfilling its mission, Calbright should annually report to the Legislature its progress related to each step in its implementation plan.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2023

Calbright has created an Implementation Plan (IP) that the auditor's team has approved. This internal and deliberative planning document requires review and updates in six-month cycles. The first review was completed in the first calendar quarter of 2023 and a progress update was provided to Calbright's Board, in a public meeting, in the spring of 2023.

In addition, public updates to the College's Board are completed regularly and include both topic-specific presentations—such as ratification of a bargaining agreement or re-launch of the website—as well as more general updates, like holistic progress made in a prior calendar year or fiscal year. These are complemented by Calbright's engagement with Legislative offices and annual milestone report, which is published each summer and shared directly with the Legislature, Board, and placed on the College's website.

The Milestone Report provides an update on the College's progress with regard to the requirements outlined in Calbright's founding legislation, as well as priorities included in the IP. The high-level goals and deliverables articulated in the IP align with requirements in Calbright's founding legislation - the report includes discussion of enrollment and completion, student body demographics, academic program development, accreditation, labor market outcomes for graduates, and student survey data, as well as initiatives and improvements in areas like student success, staffing, and technology infrastructure. The Calbright team has also met with every Legislator's office to provide updates about the College directly, and will continue to do so. Calbright's president and CEO also participates in budget hearings in the spring with appropriate Senate and Assembly committees, which includes direct engagement from the College's leadership team with staff from the committees as well as elected officials' offices in order to answer questions they have regarding Calbright.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

We have previously determined that Calbright implemented the first part of our recommendation to develop an implementation plan containing all of the elements listed in the recommendation. For this update, Calbright provided documentation of an internal procedure for reviewing and updating the implementation plan, and documentation of its November 2022 update to that plan. It also provided its most recent milestone documents and a separate report to the Board of Governors to demonstrate that it has provided updates to the Board on its progress on the implementation plan. However, the documents provided do not include a complete update on its progress on the implementation plan. Although an update to the Board lists key tasks that Calbright had completed, it did not, for example, report on tasks that were in progress or on the horizon, or the degree to which Calbright had many any adjustments to expected completion timelines. Additionally, Calbright did not provide documentation demonstrating that it had reported on its progress on the implementation plan to the Legislature as we had recommended.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From November 2022

As reported in November 2021, Calbright has fully implemented all elements of Recommendation 6 with the exception of an annual review of the Implementation Plan. This final element requires a full year to pass since the Implementation Plan was created and the California State Auditor's office has indicated that this recommendation will be considered fully implemented when the first annual review of the Implementation Plan and report to Calbright's Board of Trustees is complete. Calbright anticipates all tasks will be finished during the first quarter of 2023.

The first annual review of the Implementation Plan will begin in November 2022. Following an internal review, the College will provide a report to the Board of Trustees about how the Plan has advanced progress toward achieving the College's mission, and any necessary adjustments made to the Plan as part of the review process.

Calbright has also written and shared a memo to the Foundation for California Community Colleges (FCCC) that details a strategy and timeline for how and when the College plans to end reliance on FCCC's support. As of October 2021, FCCC no longer supports Calbright in six of the eight workstreams in which it previously assisted, and by March 2024, any services requested by Calbright and provided by FCCC will likely be of a limited and technical nature.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

1-Year Agency Response

As reported in November 2021, Calbright has fully implemented the first six items under Recommendation 6, and will demonstrate that it has made consistent progress in implementing its plan by July 2022.

Calbright College has developed and already begun implementing a robust Implementation Plan (IP) covering January 2021 through December 2025, the remaining five years of our statutory seven-year startup period. Through the first quarter of 2022, the College completed each deliverable, including recognition of the establishment of a student government, creating a plan that integrates career preparation and development into every part of the student journey, and implementing a staff performance review process.

The IP aligns with best practices and translates our mission into actionable goals and strategies. It includes institution-level goals for our operational setup and student outcomes; activities, which are the major steps required to meet those goals, grouped by focus area; and assigned executive leads, estimated resources, and key deliverables with target completion dates for each focus area. The deliverables and completion dates are the mechanisms we are using to monitor progress and measure success. The IP is also aligned with our spending plan (Rec #2). Within each focus area, periodic reviews and revisions are built into specific activities and deliverables, and the IP will receive holistic review every six months.

Calbright has also written and shared a memo to the Foundation for California Community Colleges (FCCC) that details a strategy and timeline for how and when we plan to end reliance on FCCC's support. As of October 2021, FCCC no longer supports Calbright in six of the eight workstreams in which it previously assisted, and by March 2024, any services requested by Calbright and provided by FCCC will likely be of a limited and technical nature.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Partially Implemented

We will assess Calbright's periodic review and revision of the plan, consistent progress in implementing the plan, and annual report to the Legislature - when its update on those steps becomes due later this year.

6-Month Agency Response

Calbright has fully implemented the first six items under Recommendation 6 and will demonstrate that it has made consistent progress in implementing its plan by July 2022

Calbright College has developed and already begun implementing a robust Implementation Plan (IP) covering January 2021 through December 2025, the remaining five years of our statutory seven-year startup period. The IP aligns with best practices and translates our mission into actionable goals and strategies. It includes institution-level goals for our operational setup and student outcomes; activities, which are the major steps required to meet those goals, grouped by focus area; and assigned executive leads, estimated resources, and key deliverables with target completion dates for each focus area. The deliverables and completion dates are the mechanisms we are using to monitor progress and measure success. The IP is also aligned with our spending plan (Rec. #2). Within each focus area, periodic reviews and revisions are built into specific activities and deliverables, and the IP will receive holistic review every six months.

Calbright has also written and shared a memo to the Foundation for California Community Colleges (FCCC) that details a strategy and timeline for how and when we plan to end reliance on FCCC's support. As of October 2021, FCCC no longer supports Calbright in six of the eight workstreams in which it previously assisted, including: Budgeting & Business Processes; Legal, Contracts, Risk Management and Governance; Purchasing; Information Technology; External Relations, Marketing & Communications Design; and Office Space. Our current engagement with FCCC is compliant with requirements that apply to the CCC system and consistent with best practices.

By March 2024, any services requested by Calbright and provided by FCCC will likely be of a limited and technical nature, as we near fully independent financial, technical, and administrative units.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Partially Implemented

Calbright provided its Implementation and Spending Plan, which identifies its goals for student outcomes and the setup of the college. The Plan also includes the minimum items that we identified in the recommendation, including the major steps necessary to achieve its goals, due dates for accomplishing those steps, and specific deliverables. Calbright also provided its plan for ending its reliance on the FCC. Calbright's implementation of these plans should improve its ability to achieve its stated goals.

We will assess Calbright's implementation of the remainder of this recommendation - including its periodic review and revision of the plan, consistent progress in implementing the plan, and annual report to the Legislature - when its update on those steps becomes due in July 2022.

60-Day Agency Response

Calbright has completed a 3-year Strategic Vision for Calbright's future, including ambitious and achievable goals relating to program pathway development and scaling, and organizational maturity at scale. This Strategic Vision has been approved by the Calbright Board of Trustees and includes goals for completing the setup of the college and its student outcome goals. We are in the process of further developing this vision into a robust implementation plan with more specific detail. As envisioned by the Legislature, Calbright contracted with the Foundation for California Community Colleges during the seven-year start-up window. We have taken a number of steps towards setting up key organizational administrative functions and will develop a plan for reducing contractual administrative services during this period. Calbright has scheduled a series of meetings with the Foundation for California Community Colleges leadership over the next several months to formalize this plan.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

We look forward to reviewing Calbright's implementation plan once it is complete. However, it is critical that Calbright build its implementation plan around goals that will help it to achieve its mission. As we stated in the audit report, although Calbright published a strategic vision containing goals for student enrollment, program completion, and labor market outcomes, it did not adequately support its goals by benchmarking them against multiple colleges or other points of comparison. Until Calbright demonstrates that it has established reasonable goals for completing the setup of the college and for student outcomes, Calbright cannot demonstrate that any implementation plan that it develops to achieve those goals is adequate to assisting it in achieving its mission.

All Recommendations in 2020-104

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.