Mesalands keeps Moss as president

Mesalands Community College conducted a nationwide search for a new president, but it turned out the board of trustees preferred the candidate who'd been running the college for the past 18 months.

The board last Tuesday officially removed the "interim" tag from president Allen Moss' job title, offering him the position and approving a three-year contract at about $170,000 a year. The votes on both measures were unanimous.

The actions followed a closed executive session that lasted about 30 minutes.

"Thank you," Moss told the board after the votes. "I look forward to continue what we're doing."

Board Chairman Richard Primrose said he appreciated the work by the search committee in the last few months in sorting through 32 initial applications, winnowing them to five, then interviewing two finalists.

"It's been a drawn-out process, but we got somebody who can take Mesalands forward. He already has," Primrose said.

After the meeting adjourned, Moss thanked and shook hands of all the trustees.

Moss, previously senior executive director of concurrent enrollment and academic outreach at Mesalands, was appointed in February 2023 as temporary acting president while the college was mired in turmoil.

Moss' predecessor, Gregg Busch, abruptly left town following a no-confidence vote by the executive staff, faculty senate and staff senate. Busch had been accused of concealing the college's dire financial condition and threatening to fire those who would reveal it. Mesalands was projected to miss payroll in mere weeks.

Busch later submitted his resignation.

Moss said he thought "bringing some normalcy and some transparency" after Busch's departure helped his case to be Mesalands' permanent president. The college imposed progressive pay cuts and other cost-cutting moves to remain afloat.

"I think we're also making steady progress (financially). Even though we're still not where we need to be, we've steadily got closer," he added.

Moss said among his near-term goals are building up the commercial driver's license program, examining the possibility of a building trades program and doing joint career and technical education programs with area high schools.

The other finalists for Mesalands president were:

- Billy W. Adams, vice president of instruction at Panola College in Carthage, Texas;

- Sandra Kiddoo, president of Northland Community and Technical College in Minnesota;

- Lyvier L. Leffler, vice president for student success at Lone Star College-University Park in Houston;

- Stacy Pfluger, provost and interim president of Southeast Arkansas College.

In other business:

- Mark Martinez, executive director of operations and procurement, reported to the board the college was forced to return a total of more than $229,000 to the state at the end of the recently completed fiscal year.

He said reasons for the returns included changes in key staff, changes of goals or scopes of work, or failure to meet deadlines because of unavailable contractors or delays in insurance.

Returns ranged from $252.84 from a library general-obligation bond to $100,000 for a solar and wind energy program project. For the latter, safety and updated training items were deemed ineligible for purchase by the Higher Education Department.

The college also returned $75,000 for a nurse's aide and phlebotomy facility renovation set for the old armory building, but the program was moved to Building A. Martinez said he wanted to use the funds instead to renovate restrooms in Building A, but exterior repairs were required before that could happen.

"Funds were limited to fix the interior, and we could not find a contractor to accomplish the project within the limited time," Martinez's report stated.

The state took back $53,771.49 from a central students services center renovation project because the scope of work was completed below the original bid amount by removing unnecessary items.

Martinez wrote that internal discussions have taken place to avoid future returns of state money.

Martinez also wrote that renovations to Building A were complete, with a reimbursement of $118,581.43 forthcoming.

- The board agreed to combine or move low-rate certificates of deposit into higher-yielding accounts after an examination of rates from local banks.

The rates on two college-owned CDs were 0.6% and 1.1%. Most area banks were offering rates between 3.75% to as much as 5.63%.

Moss said even with the possibility of early withdrawals on some of the CDs, the penalty is relatively small compared to the gain in yield.

- During his spring enrollment report, Vice President of Student Affairs Josh McVey stated a total of 645 students during the semester, which was down from 783 in the previous year but better than the 600 in the spring of 2022.

Moss attributed the dip to a drop of about 150 dual-enrollment students from outlying areas as a cost-cutting move by the college.

- The board approved a 70-page student nurse handbook at the college. Joel Kiser, vice president of academics, said the handbook bolsters the program's case for accreditation.