Regents and community college trustees will work to develop a relationship in a meeting today.
The Kansas Association of Community College Trustees and the Kansas Board of Regents' three-member commission on community colleges and vocational-technical education are scheduled to meet for the first time today in Wichita.
Those planning to attend the meeting say it will help cement the relationship that has developed between the regents and the trustees since a new state law reforming higher education governance took effect this summer.
Sheila Frahm, KACCT's executive director, said the regents have earned the confidence of community college officials.
"I think they have," Frahm said. "It's an evolving process. The regents are just starting to get together."
Community college leaders like Frahm were anxious as the new law took effect. The law reconstituted the board and assigned to it the authority to coordinate all of higher education in the state.
That placed a new level of authority between the colleges and the Legislature. Also, some of the coordination powers granted to the board under the law have been seen by some as giving the board powers normally assigned to a local governing body.
The regents directly govern Kansas' six state universities, including Kansas University. Local boards of trustees govern the community colleges.
The regents have worked hard in the past month and a half to develop a relationship with the community college leaders, said the board's vice chair.
"I think that when you put a face on leadership," you create that trust," said Clay Blair III. "That's what the Board of Regents have been doing for the past 35 to 40 days."
One substantial challenge remains to be worked out by the board and the trustees. That is a possible change in the way community colleges are funded under the new law.
Both Blair and Frahm say the community colleges are close to a recommended change in that formula, which was seen by some of the colleges as placing them at risk of losing money in the future or having to increase local mill levies to make up for the loss.
Frahm said she hopes the new changes will bring more equity to how the formula distributes money among the colleges.
One of the goals of the funding formula was to reduce the reliance on local property taxes by phasing in increased state funding over a four-year period.
Also on the agenda for the meeting is a definition of the formal process the regents want the KACCT to follow when it makes recommendations to the board, Frahm said.
-- Erwin Seba's phone message number is 832-7145. His e-mail address is eseba@ljworld.com.
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