• Office: Board of Trustees, City College
• Election Date: November 8, 2022
• Candidate: John Rizzo
• Due Date: Monday, August 29, 2022
• Printable Version

Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 8, 2022 general election! GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city via common sense solutions and effective government.

The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco and have the expertise to enact meaningful policy changes.

We ask that you please complete this questionnaire by Monday, August 29, 2022 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.

• Vision
  • Short-form questions
  • Education
  • Budget
  • Instruction
  • Long-form questions
  • General
  • Instruction and Curriculum
  • Budget
• Policy
• Personal
• Thank you

Vision

GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous San Francisco. And we believe that great public schools are necessary for a great and prosperous society.

This section of our questionnaire seeks to help us gain an understanding of your alignment with our vision for San Francisco.

Short-form questions

Please mark the box that best aligns with your position. You may explain any position if you so desire, but this section is designed to be a quick overview of your view of the city's problems and what solutions you might propose.

Education

In general, is it too hard, just right, or too easy to…	Too hard	Just right	Too easy
Enroll in City College	x
Hire good teachers	x
Fire bad teachers	x

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

Regarding the enrollment system, we at the Board this year directed $1 million to hire a software engineering firm to rebuild the registration system. We now have funding for this only because we stabilized the College's finances and ended the College's structural deficits. An RFP is going out. Once we have a tech firm under contract, we will have a better idea of the final cost.

Hiring and firing of teachers is highly regulated by the State of California. To fire employees, there are many procedures that colleges must follow, and it can take some time. The Board of Trustees is only involved when the firing is due to a complaint. In this case, an appeal to the Board is the very last step; After the employee has exhausted all other steps in the process, they can appeal to the Board.

For hiring, the problem is the old, outdated hiring procedures that are currently used. We at the Board have directed the chancellor to rewrite the teacher hiring procedures, which should make it easier to hire qualified people. Human Resources is now working on a draft.

Budget

In general, is City College budgeting too much, just enough, or too little on…	Too much	Just Enough	Enough, but badly	Too little
Facilities		x
Extracurricular activities		x
Teacher salaries		x
Administrative salaries	x
Support for students like tutoring, scholarships, career counseling, etc		x
Classes which count toward degrees		x
Classes or programs which don't count toward degrees		x

If you want to explain any positions above, please feel free:

On facilities, voters passed an $845 million bond measure in 2020, which the current Board put on the ballot. As Facilities Chair, I have been overseeing the movement on these projects to replace dilapidated, outdated facilities with state-of-the-art facilities. Three buildings are now shovel-ready, completely designed and awaiting approval by the California Department of the State Architect. Approval and construction could begin this year. A fourth new building is still in design, and we expect to complete design during early next year.

In addition to that, we have now budgeted funding for regular building maintenance. This funding is not only needed for the students, but is required by accreditation.

I believe salaries in general need to be competitive with what the market pays in order to attract and retain talent. For the City College, the "market" is the average of ten Bay Area community colleges. Right now, teachers are slightly below that level, and administrators are slightly above it.

Why is City College facing a budget crisis? Please provide a short answer here, and a longer answer in the "Long-form questions" section.

City College is no longer facing a budget crisis. During the pandemic, the College lost 27% of its students and some funding, leaving us with too many employees for the numbers of students and level of funding. We have fixed this by laying off employees and cutting the Fall class schedule by 11%. The budget is now stabilized, and all financial requirements of the accreditation, FCMAT, the state chancellor's office, and the College's audit are satisfied. Please see this press release:

https://www.ccsf.edu/news/ccsf-stabilizes-finances-sustainable-2022-23-budget

Instruction

Tell us about the quality of education available at City College, and what should be done to improve it, if needed.

The quality of City College education is generally good, and some programs have been recognized as outstanding in their field (the Radiology program, for instance). City College compares well in the metrics provided by the State Chancellor Office. Quality in some areas has also been steadily improving over the past few years. For instance, for the past three years the College has generally exceeded its goals in transfers, degrees, and certificates, with numbers increasing.

Another area we have been improving is the time it takes students to get through their program (known as "student completion.") The goal is to shorten the time students spend at City College to get to their next step. This student completion time has been decreasing over the past 4 years, a good trend.

But the College can do better with implementing "Guided Pathways," a methodology that aims to provide students with better information as to which courses they need to take to transfer to a 4-year, to graduate, or complete their certificate. There is innovative software available that students can use to create their own "roadmap" of courses. I am working to get City College to evaluate these systems.

I will also note that following the planning process required by the accreditation does lead to continual improvement in quality. This is why accreditation agencies require them.

Tell us one thing you think needs to change about City College that the average voter wouldn't know about.

One thing that needs to change is the process of developing the budget. I have introduced a policy revision that would make the process more transparent and give the public more time to review proposed budgets before being passed.

By law, the Board of Trustees passes the budget twice, a preliminary budget in June, and a final in September after the state makes adjustments to what it is sending to the colleges. The problem that has occurred for years is that the finance office puts the final draft of the June Budget together too close to the deadline. This doesn't give the board or the public enough time to get into the weeds.

My policy change proposal would require the administration to present a complete budget (not just an outline) at the May Board meeting. The Board would then hear the budget twice, in both May and June. The Budget Committee would continue to hear aspects of the developing budget in the previous months. This and other aspects of the proposal would add transparency to the process. I describe some of the other reforms this proposal would enact in a question below.

The Budget Committee heard the proposal in June and forwarded it to the faculty-based Participatory Governance Council for comments. It will come to the full Board this fall.

Long-form questions

General

In what ways is City College succeeding?

City College is succeeding financially. By eliminating the structural deficits, college staff is getting back to the job of running the day-to-day operations and planning for the future, rather than constantly seeking ways to stay afloat.

We need to stay this fiscal course, to keep the finances stable, to not spend more funds than the College receives, and to spend funds where it is required by accreditation and the State of California. Our opponents want to reverse these gains. They have pledged to hire back all the laid off workers, which would bankrupt the College and place it in trouble with the state auditors and the accreditation agency.

City College is also succeeding in its core mission to deliver quality education. This has never been questioned, even during the accreditation crises of 10 years ago.

In what ways is City College failing?

There is much more work to be done to address the so-called achievement gap. Much research is being done by education professionals around the country that we can learn from. These have to do with identifying unintentional barriers in the institutions themselves and changing cultures, and making sure the existing "wrap-around" services are focused on areas that are proven to show progress.

We have established an Office of Student Equity to help with this issue. They work with the College's Research Department.

This is a tough issue that requires analysis and a data-focused approach. Our board understands this, and knows that grandstanding by board members does not produce results.

Instruction and Curriculum

What can the Community College Board do to improve student performance at City College?

This is another area where there has been a lot of research. I believe that the Guided Pathways approach, which I described above, has been shown to improve student completion rates and grades. Basically, shortening the time a student spends in community college increases the chance that the student will succeed and complete the program, and not get burned out.

City College is using Guided Pathways, but Guided Pathways implementation at City College has been slowed somewhat by opposition to it by some faculty members. There is a philosophy among some faculty that students benefit from spending a longer time in community college. However, the data debunks this, and shows that Guided Pathways increases student completion and success.

I mentioned above that there is innovative software on the market that enable students to find the shortest path to graduation. In addition to that, I think we can offer more training to our counselors and faculty to make the more proficient in the area, and try to change the culture a bit about this.

There is more information on Guided Pathways at the State Chancellor's Office:

https://www.cccco.edu/College-Professionals/Guided-Pathways

Are students graduating with the skills necessary to obtain a good job? Why or why not?

Yes, for those graduating into the workforce. (Those graduating to transfer to a four-year college have the skills to continue their education, and generally do well there.) Each of our workforce training programs have their own standards for completion, and some, such as nursing, have their own accreditation. Graduates of programs such as the Firefighters Academy, CityBuild, Emergency Medical Technology, Biotech, the Culinary Program, the Floristry Program, Journalism, and others, are all known for placing students into the workforce. The feedback we hear from employers is that our graduates perform well.

What is the City College curriculum lacking which the Community College Board could rectify?

Boards don't have much say on curriculum in California. By state law, Community College Boards cannot dictate what curriculum colleges can have, or what the curriculum should or shouldn't contain. The Education Code leaves this to faculty committees, such as the City College Curriculum Committee of the Academic Senate.

That said, I would like to see the College partner more with industry in some areas of technology, the way we partner with the biotech industry for our biotech program. This is not something the board can directly rectify. But we can reach out to industry and introduce them to faculty to encourage the two to work together.

(Title 3, Division 7: California Community Colleges: 70900 General Provisions\n\n- 70902 Academic Senate has primary responsibility for recommendations regarding curriculum)

Budget

Why is City College facing a budget crisis? Please explain the nature of this budget crisis.

As I mentioned above, City College is no longer facing a budget crisis, despite the fact that the COVID Pandemic caused problems for colleges nationwide.

To address the Pandemic-caused loss of revenue and a 27% decline in enrollment, the College reduced the number of classes in spring by 11% (241 fewer classes). The number of laid of tenured faculty was 30, with some 65 classified workers let go. The result is that the College's finances have been stabilized and the structural deficits eliminated.

Since this question asks "why", I want to point out that the enrollment decline and loss of revenue was a national problem, not just a local one. Community college enrollment declined across the country during the Pandemic and has not recovered. CalMatters wrote that in the State of California, "Fall 2021 headcount is down approximately 7% from fall 2020 and down 20% overall compared to fall 2019." This drop was larger in urban areas.

https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2022/03/community-college-enrollment/

National enrollment did not recover with this years spring semester, as the New York Times reported in May:

"College Enrollment Drops, Even as the Pandemic's Effects Ebb"

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/us/college-enrollment.html

"All told, community colleges around the country have lost 827,000 students since the pandemic began in spring 2020." A data expert is quoted, "I thought we would start to see some of the declines begin to shrink a bit this term," he said. "I am surprised that it seems to be getting worse."

Additionally, City College lost local San Francisco sales tax revenue, which does not tax online sales. This is also not back to pre-pandemic levels. Fortunately for the College, we have dealt with these issues and ended the structural deficits.

All this adds up to why we had to make the hard choice to lay off workers in order to stabilize the college finances.

What hard choices must City College make to fix its budget crisis?

The hard choices that we made included laying off 65 classified workers, 30 faculty, and 5 administrators. To maintain fiscal solvency we must maintain a similar employee-to-student ratio that is the norm for most California Community Colleges.

Our opponents have said they would hire back the laid off employees and hire more part time instructors. With accreditation starting this year, this budget-busting idea is the biggest threat to the City College.

It is the job of our unions to defend their members. But it is the job of the Board of Trustees to maintain the fiscal norms that are required of them and that are standard in California Community Colleges. Bottom line, we cannot spend more than we take in.

What courses or programs should City College cut to improve its budget situation?

We should follow student demand. Programs with increased demand get expanded, programs with decreased demand get reduced. The departments that had the biggest enrollment declines were the departments that were cut this fall.

But stabilizing the budget and satisfying accreditation and state financial requirements is more complex than simply cutting programs. We are also required to SPEND in certain areas. A stable budget MUST have funding available for these items. Here are some of the things we accomplished to stabilize the budget:

• A projected 5% increase in cash reserves in both the 2021-22 actuals and 2022-23 budget. (Required for accreditation and State FCMAT)

• Elimination of structural deficit spending in the 2021-22 actuals and 2022-23 budget.

• A reduction in total college salary and benefits costs from 91% to approximately 87% of the total operational budget (the statewide average for California community colleges is approximately 87%).

• Provided funding to eliminate negative balances and fully fund the college's insurance plans, and development of a financial plan.

• Provided funding for ongoing scheduled maintenance funding for classroom and building repairs. (Required for accreditation)

• Provided funding for ongoing technology refreshment to ensure industry-relevant tech is accessible for CCSF students. (Required for accreditation)

• Provided funding for employee benefit and college insurance. (Required for accreditation and state FCMAT)

• Provided funding for professional development for faculty, and staff. (Required for accreditation)

• Significant year-over-year progress in aligning with the California community college full-time faculty obligation number, with 60 fewer full-time faculty positions in the coming 2022-23 budget.

The Board members didn't do this by ourselves. We spent two years searching for the right permanent Chancellor for City College, someone who is an expert in finance. Chancellor Martin is a certified CPA and a certified financial fraud investigator. His recommendations have been sound and we have been following his advice. They have resulted in the repairing of City College's financial issues.

Please see this press release from the College last month:

https://www.ccsf.edu/news/ccsf-stabilizes-finances-sustainable-2022-23-budget

What new revenue streams might City College tap into to address its budget crisis?

Right now, a new revenue stream is not needed, as the Board has addressed the budget crisis, and there is enough funding to meet current demand and to meet the required spending areas. This could change in the future, and we are in a much better position to ask for additional funding, now that we are meeting all fiscal requirements.

That said, one potential new revenue stream is federal funding for Hispanic Serving Institutes (HSI). We have investigated this, and the College did qualify one year. Then the pandemic hit, and the opportunity was lost. But this remains a potential for the future.

In my time at the Board of Trustees, I have been involved in several efforts to attain new revenue. When I was Board President, I led the effort to put the College's first parcel tax on the ballot, which was the only second community college parcel tax passed in the State of California. During the accreditation crisis, I was involved in the efforts that resulted in new state funding, led by then-Senator Mark Leno and Assemblymember Ting. Most recently, I worked to place the $845 bond measure on the 2020 ballot and worked to pass it.

I also travel annually to Washington DC to investigate funding sources, such as those for HSIs. There, we talk to people in the Department of Education and other agencies.

But I want to say a word about Proposition O, the new parcel tax proposal put on the ballot by the unions at City College. Legal experts say that should it pass, it is likely to be challenged in court, which means the College wouldn't see the funding for several years. If the financial situation is the same in several years (ie, that the College has enough funding to meet demand), this additional funding would result in more classes, and therefore smaller class sizes. Smaller classes are generally a good thing in education, and can result in improved student success, so I support Prop O for this reason.

Policy

Now that we know where you align and differ from our vision for San Francisco, we'd like to get some details about how you intend to use your elected office to achieve your goals.

Why are you running for Community College Board?

I am running for another term to make sure accreditation goes smoothly, to maintain the College's fiscal stability, and to complete the building projects in the $845 million Prop A bond and insure these funds are spent responsibly.

What is your #1 policy goal?

Re-accreditation for City College. I can think of no issue that impacts our students more. Without accreditation, our students' work would not be transferable, degrees could not be awarded, certificates not earned.

The accreditation cycle starts again this year. Serving on the board, I and my colleagues have now satisfied all outstanding accreditation issues, including having a 5% reserve fund 2 years in a row, funding building maintenance, professional training for employees, and funding new student computers. We must continue to fund these required areas in order to ensure a smooth re-accreditation process.

If our opponents are elected, they have promised to undo all of this. They have promised to rehire the laid-off workers and hire additional part time teachers. This would exhaust the reserve fund, and the other funds required for accreditation. When asked about this, they stated publicly that they would fight the accreditation agency.

Such a public fight would do significant damage to the reputation of City College, would generate warnings from the state FCMAT auditors, and would lead to a potential state takeover.

The ACCJC accreditation agency has itself been reformed, and is now run by competent professionals. What they require of City College are nothing more than the fiscal norms that every community college follows, and SHOULD follow.. Should I be re-elected, I would work to continue to ensure fiscal compliance in order to have a smooth, professional, drama-free accreditation process.

How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal?

Our slate of 4 incumbents currently has significant political support from people including former Mayor Willie Brown, Senator Scott Wiener, Assemblymember Phil Ting, and Assemblymember Matt Haney. In my conversations with them, they all understand the importance of ensuring smooth accreditation process.

Will the power of the office of Community College Board be enough to achieve this goal?

Yes. Although the College Board does have limited power, re-accreditation is firmly the responsibility of the Board and Chancellor.

What are your #2 and #3 policy goals?

My #2 goal is building for the future: these are the building projects spelled out in the $845 million Bond measure, and building student housing. For the bond measure, the plan is to replace delapidated student facilities with new facilities quickly in a time of high construction inflation. As Facilities chair, I've been overseeing 3 classroom building projects that are now at the state waiting for approval. There is a fourth still in design.

The second part of this goal is to build student housing on City College land. I have talking to other community colleges around the country about how they developed student housing. I have also been in touch with developers. One promising funding mechanism would be using a public-private partnership known as Certificates of Participation as a funding mechanism.

I will also note that the Board and I have been successful in obtaining over 100 units of affordable housing for teachers in the City's Balboa Reservoir housing project. We were able to do this through the negotiations with the Developer. There is also some funding for this purpose available from the state that we could seek as an additional source.

My #3 goal is growing enrollment. This is a tough call right now when unemployment is low and enrollment is still down nationwide. But I believe a targeted recruitment campaign aimed at the students who have dropped out during the pandemic can reap results. With our fiscal situation now stable, we now have resources for this purpose.

Will the power of the office of Community College Board be enough to achieve these goals?

Yes. The Board has the responsibility to ensure that the bond funds are spent wisely, and to use its oversight role to make sure projects are completed in a timely manner. The same is true for student housing, though the funding mechanism is different. As for enrollment, the Board has the power to allocate resources and direct the chancellor to conduct such a campaign (ie, hire the required marketing firm, etc.)

What is an existing policy you would like to reform?

I have mentioned above that I would like to reform the Budget creation process, and have put forward a proposal that would amend the City College Budget Policy. As I described above, it would require the administration to prepare a completed draft budget for the May meeting, so that the Board would have two readings of it. This would give the Board and the public an extra month to review it.

The proposal would also require the College to prepare a multiyear (3-to-5 year) budget plan annually. The College has had such a multiyear at a few times during the past, but an annual multiyear budget plan would be helpful in providing forecasting information.

Another new feature of this policy revision is to use an outside entity to review the budget during the fiscal year. The independent audit is conducted after the fiscal year ends. We get reports like this from our budget office now, but an independent look would be beneficial and hopefully alert us to potential problems that may be developing.

The Budget Committee heard the proposal in June and forwarded it to the faculty-based Participatory Governance Council for comments. It will come to the full Board this fall.

What is an "out there" change that you would make to state/local government policy, if you could? (For example: changing how elections work, creating a Bay Area regional government, etc.)

I would change the way California Community Colleges are funded. When the economy is in recession, student demand and enrollment increases everywhere, but the state usually cuts funding. It's backwards. Although we don't know when the next recession will be, we do know the economy is cyclic. I think Jerry Brown had the right idea, to create a rainy day fund for education. But I think we need to go further. I would like to create a mechanism that puts aside higher education funding in boom years to use during the bust years.

Personal

Tell us a bit about yourself!

What is your professional background?

I started my career as a chemical engineer, working for Boeing in Seattle for some time.. I then became a journalist covering the tech industry, where I worked for several magazines, freelanced for many years, and authored 14 books. I ran a tech news web site called macwindows.com for many years. I have also done consulting and produced marketing materials for clients.

Are you currently or formerly enrolled at City College, and/or do you have any children who are currently or formerly enrolled at City College?

I have taken classes at City College. The last two were just before the pandemic. My daughter also took classes at City College when she was in high school.

How long have you lived in San Francisco? What brought you here and what keeps you here?

I have lived in San Francisco for 38 years.

What do you love most about California and/or San Francisco?

There are many things I love about our city and state. I love the beauty of the landscapes and cityscapes, the arts and culture, the ability to share the experiences of many cultures.

But what I love most is the innovation in California and San Francisco. I first came here to be at the center of the tech industry for my career, and found many opportunities here because of it. The innovation here extends to the arts as well as the sciences, and even to the food. I still find this innovation exciting.

What do you dislike the most about California and/or San Francisco?

In San Francisco policy, there are some strange ideas about how to do things, a lack of professionalism, and decisions not being made based on the data. There seems to be a lack of addressing the problems at hand. A prime example includes the decisions of the school board during the past several years, which were perplexing and maddening, which is why I supported the school board recalls.

This extends to some of the people who work at City College. Some in the faculty organize students to take positions that are sometimes contrary to the best interests of the students and of the institution. In the California community college system, City College is known as the most political community college in the state. This is unfortunate.

Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)

I am active in the Sierra Club, advocating for green energy projects and solutions to climate change. I worked with Phil Ting and the solar industry to create the GoSolarSF program when Phil Ting was Assessor. Our efforts also include providing the public with information about reducing their carbon footprint.

I am also a volunteer member of the Standards Review Team for the Accrediting Commission for Community Colleges and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). I was appointed by the Commission, and the work involves reviewing a new draft of the accreditation standards.

I have found this work particularly rewarding, as it is doing something to help all of California's community colleges, and has increased my understanding of the accreditation standards that we must follow.

Thank you

Thank you for giving us your time and answering our questionnaire. We look forward to reading your answers and considering your candidacy!