• Office: Community College Board
• Election Date: November 5, 2024
• Candidate: Luis Zamora
• Due Date: August 26, 2024
• Printable Version

Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 5, 2024 election! GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city delivered via common sense solutions and effective government. Our work includes running public opinion polls to understand what voters want, advocating for those changes, and ensuring that the SF government represents the people.

The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco.

This questionnaire will be published on growsf.org, and so we hope that you use this opportunity to communicate with voters.

Please complete this questionnaire by August 26, 2024 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.

• Your Goals
• Executive experience
• The Issues
  • Budget
  • Accreditation
  • Chancellor
  • Curriculum
• Personal
• Thank you

Your Goals

We'd like to get some details about your high-level goals and how you intend to use your elected office to achieve them.

Why are you running for Community College Board?

As a first-generation college student, I've seen firsthand the transformative power that a community college education can have. Growing up, my family had limited resources, and like many families, we were just above the cutoffs where significant financial aid would be available. Four-year college wasn't an option, and I went to community college for my associate degree. I believe my lived experience, one that many CCSF students experience, is needed on the Board of Trustees.

I'm running for community college board to bring accountability to CCSF, to improve enrollment numbers, and to right the financial ship. I will champion common sense solutions and transparency to steer CCSF toward stability and regain the trust of our community. When elected, I will be CCSF's first openly gay Latino trustee.

What is your #1 policy goal?

Accountability: It's time for clarity and accountability between the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor, ensuring that appropriate authority is delegated while maintaining accountability. This means clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor, ensuring there is a proper system of checks and balances. The Board of Trustees needs to follow its own rules. I will also push for regular, public reporting on key performance metrics and progress towards strategic budget goals. This data-driven approach will allow the community to hold CCSF leadership accountable.

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

I am running with a slate of candidates (Heather McCarty & Ruth Ferguson) to bring new leadership to CCSF. We know what needs to be done, and we will leverage all the resources we can, from assistance from the State Chancellors office, to working with our state and local elected leaders, to put CCSF on solid footing for years to come.

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

I believe that it will take a coalition like the one I mentioned above to get this across the finish line. I will work with anyone who is willing and look forward to compromising where possible without compromising my values and mission for CCSF.

What are your #2 and #3 policy goals?

• Financial Stability

• Enrollment & Retention

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

Yes with the new leadership.

Executive experience

Please describe your experience running or governing large organizations, managing teams (including hiring, firing, and performance management), driving cultural change and clear communication throughout all levels, effective financial management (budgets, reporting, audit, etc.), and any other relevant experience.

Prior to working in local government and our state legislature, I worked for various top 100 law firms for over 15 years. That included managing (inclusive of hiring, training, coaching, & evaluating) large and diverse teams to both execute day-to-day operations, and long-term projects. In these roles I was an administrative manager, a facilities manager, and was responsible for multi-million dollar budgets, inclusive of forecasting, analyzing profit and loss, producing variance reports when we exceeded or did not meet goals, and made long-term capital project/equipment recommendations. As a facilities manager (and former President of San Francisco's International Facilities Management Association (IFMA)), I was well versed in building operations and services, campus equipment like HVAC units and boilers, and managed large scale renovation projects for some of San Francisco's high-rises for many law firm clients. All of these roles required me to have clear communication skills at all levels of the organization, from the service employees to the equitable partners. I know that this skill set will be immensely relevant to CCSF and the role of trustee.

Please describe a time when you had an underperforming subordinate and how you handled the situation, including (and especially) how you were able to increase their performance.

As someone who has managed over 40 direct subordinates (direct reports), there were several times when performance management plans were needed. The nature of my law firm roles was really as a "fixer". I would be sent to major law firms to address underperforming teams, or to develop better service models. As soon as a firm was operating with best practices and appropriately trained staff, I would move on to other firms that needed assistance.

Over those 15 years, there were several instances of underperformers. Many of them had to be assessed but resulted in an employee not having the appropriate training. Often we would arrive at that information by having direct conversations with the employees, but for others, it required observation. I would meet with the direct report and let them know that they were not meeting the expectations of a task or role and would asked if they needed anything specific to support them. Sometimes that would produce the answer, but sometimes we needed to dive deeper. In instances where the direct report did not take responsibility or showed no effort, I would place them on a performance management plan with clear expectations and benchmarks of where they needed to be within a certain amount of time (a reasonable time frame). I would also use documentation to document each meeting and expectation that was discussed. Many were able to get the help they needed and the issues were solved, but there were some that ended up not being a good fit. In those instances, I followed procedures for separation for those direct reports, with documentation, and always in tandem with Human Resources. I am proud that most issues were able to be resolved without incident, but I did not shy away from utilizing separation if all avenues were exhausted and it was just not the right fit.

Please describe a time when your organization faced an extreme challenge and how you got the organization through it.

One of the major law firms I worked for experienced a "catastrophic" flood within its San Francisco high rise. We were unable to go to work and there was no established plan for that type of emergency. Because we had a secondary office in Silicon Valley, I directed our staff to work out of that office until the San Francisco office could be accessed and repaired. I had to coordinate with the building and delivery organizations the redirection of all services to the Silicon Valley office. But after we got through this emergency, I created the office's first Business Continuity Plan to ensure services could continue during another emergency should it occur. It was adopted by many of the other firm's national offices.

The Issues

Next, we will cover the issues that voters tell us they care about. We hope to gain a better understanding of your policy positions, and we hope that you use this opportunity to communicate with voters.

Budget

Please describe the current budget allocation of CCSF.

Information below is from the 2024-25 Tentative Budget. Compiled in conjunction with Ruth Ferguson and Luis Zamora.

Total revenues of approximately $304.3 million with projected expenses of $310.6 million.

• While expenditures are projected to exceed revenue by $6.3 million, this is due to Capital Outlay spending, which will be absorbed by the fund balance for this account.

  69.8% of Total Revenue = $212.7 million

• It is attributable to Unrestricted General Fund and local revenue with $212.7 million in projected expenses.

• This revenue is made up of:

○ State Revenue ($107.2 million or 50.3%)

○ Local Revenue ($85.6 million or 40.2%)

○ Parcel Taxes ($19.8 million or 9.3%). It is 69.8% of total revenue.

30.2% of Remaining Total Revenue = The remaining balance of $91.6 million

• Consists of Restricted General Fund, Child Development, Cafeteria, Capital Outlay, Self insurance, Department and Agency, Associated Students, Scholarships, and Financial Aid funds that support 75 categorical programs and services.

Of the projected unrestricted general fund and parcel tax expenses:

• 34% is for Certificated salaries

• 21% for Classified salaries

• 3% for Administrator salaries

• 28% for benefits

• 0.5% for Supplies

• 8% for Operating expenses

• 0.8% for Operational Equipment

• 4% for transfers and other adjustments.

Total expenses for these categories are approximately 3% below unaudited expenses for the 2023-24 year.

In your own words, please describe the nature of City College's budget situation. Is it in crisis? Where does it fall short of what students need? What are the reasons for those shortfalls?

While CCSF has achieved short-term stability due to the "hold harmless" provision, the looming end of hold harmless funding poses a serious threat. The current board messaging is also not the true picture of what is happening at CCSF financially. In a nutshell, aside from student enrollment fees, community colleges receive funding from the state based on full-time equivalent students, or FTE's. As you can imagine, the number of FTEs has dropped dramatically starting even right before the pandemic. The state enacted the "hold harmless" funding provision, in which it decided to fund community colleges at 2017-1018 student levels. If community colleges were below 2017-2018 FTE's, the state would pay the difference. For several years, CCSF has been funded for more students than it has had. That funding runs out in 2026. But here's the rub, CCSF should have $55M in surplus right now. But it doesn't. How do we get those figures? The 2017-2018 numbers funded CCSF for 22,309 FTEs. That is the number that is used every year for the base funding. In 2023-2024, CCSF had only 14,304 FTEs, but the state paid them for an additional 8,025 FTEs (to reach that 22,309 number). That means that CCSF received almost 11M in 2023-2024 for students it didn't have. And past years yielded similar numbers. So when the current leadership states that CCSF has achieved a balanced budget with 5% in surplus (which is the minimum required of CCSF by the way), it's not a completely honest depiction of the full finances. Just a quick note – FTEs do not equal the number of students. The state calculates one full time equivalent student as 15 units taken that year. So in this example, one FTE could be 5 students each taking 3 units of courses at CCSF – their accumulated units equally 15 would make 1 FTE.

In light of these looming shortfalls, I would advocate for developing a long-term fiscal plan to align with the state's new Student Centered Funding Formula. I would also advocate for implementing more transparent budgeting processes with sufficient time for board to have input. That "hold harmless" funding I was telling you about? CCSF currently does not show within its budget how much funding is for current FTEs, and how much the state is filling in. We need to see that budget transparency, like other community colleges in the Bay Area, in order to budget appropriately. I would also explore ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency without compromising essential programs.

One reason for City College's budget concerns is declining enrollment. What will you do, as a Board of Trustees member, to boost enrollment?

To attract more students, we can revamp our marketing, revitalize our course offerings by working with the academic senate around innovative programs around emerging technologies like AI, reinvest in pipelines like skilled trades, and provide the support our students need. I would also advocate for successful programs like partnering with our local High Schools to pilot the highly successful Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools (P-TECH) program, which allows students least likely to attend college an opportunity to receive their High School diploma, a credential, or an associate degree. And I would like to expand dual enrollment opportunities.

In your opinion, does the "Free City" program, which provides free tuition to San Francisco residents, meaningfully impact City College's budget? If so, how? If not, why not?

The "Free City" program doesn't directly increase or decrease CCSF's revenue, as the City simply replaces student-paid tuition, but it has the potential to indirectly boost the college's finances by enabling students to take more courses without financial constraints and may increase the college's full time equivalent student (FTES) count. This could result in greater state funding, which forms the backbone of CCSF's revenue stream.

Accreditation

City College faces a loss of its accreditation, putting the education of its students at risk. In your view, why hasn't the accreditation crisis been solved?

It's clear from the warning letter from the state accrediting commission: (1) neglecting the long-term fiscal health of the college, (2) failing to follow its own policies, and (3) ignoring the chancellor's authority. The current leadership agreed to put a certain amount towards OPEB retirement accounts when it initially spoke to the accrediting commission. It then proceeded to not do so, jeopardizing not only the long-term future of faculty, but created doubt in the minds of the commission that the board would even follow its own policies. Not meeting a community colleges OPEB requirements could also impact future emergency assistance from the state. And of course, the current board leadership went against the Chancellor's authority by passing a resolution to rehire previously laid off faculty and setting an "expectation" for when the Chancellor should carry it out. The trustees went beyond their role of determining broad general policies and instead used authority that was only the Chancellors to exercise - engaging in administrative decisions. All administrative matters, including, but not limited to, hiring or promotion of specific individuals reside with the Chancellor only.

What needs to be done to solve the accreditation crisis?

The board of trustees need to show to the commission in its March 2025 response that it is following its own policies, not interfering, and working with the chancellor, while showing a clear commitment to long-term financial planning.

What role does the Board of Trustees play in solving this?

They are the only ones that can solve these three issues as the issues are specifically about them. For context, a community college in California needs to meet 117 accreditation requirements in order to achieve accreditation. Only 3 categories were cited in the warning letter as being deficient and all three were involving the current board of trustees.

Chancellor

In your opinion, is the Chancellor doing a good job?

Initial reports of Interim Chancellor Bailey have been positive, but he has not been on the job for very long so it is too early to tell. The current Chancellor has stated that he will not be seeking the full-time position, so the trustees need to be searching for the permanent Chancellor.

As a Trustee, how would you ensure the Chancellor is focusing on the right issues?

As a Trustee, I would ensure the Chancellor focuses on the right issues by implementing a comprehensive approach that respects our different roles of the Board and Chancellor while practicing effective governance. This would include setting clear priorities aligned with CCSF's mission, implementing regular performance evaluations, and maintaining open communication channels between the Board and Chancellor.

I would also emphasize data-driven oversight, community input, and policy alignment to guide the Chancellor's towards critical areas such as student success, fiscal stability, and accreditation compliance. I would be mindful of respecting the Chancellor's operational autonomy while fulfilling the Board's oversight responsibilities, striking a balance and accountability that would ensure CCSF's overall success.

How has the current Board of Trustees helped or hindered the Chancellor?

Again, Chancellor Bailey hasn't been there long enough to determine that, but the accreditation commission did sanction the current board from interfering with then Chancellor Martin's role.

Should the Board of Trustees retain or fire Chancellor David Martin?

Chancellor Martin resigned and is no longer with CCSF.

Curriculum

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

The Board of Trustees can improve student performance by prioritizing data-driven decision making and regularly analyzing student performance data to identify areas for improvement. The Board should also ensure resources are strategically allocated to support student success initiatives and create policies that promote academic excellence.

They should also establish clear performance metrics and hold the administration accountable for meeting these goals, something that I regularly employed at many of my law firm accounts. Finally, the Board should support ongoing professional development for faculty and staff focused on improving teaching and learning outcomes, while also maintaining a strong focus on equity to address achievement gaps.

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

I would need to look at the different CCSF programs success rate data, but I would argue there is still a lot of room for improvement across the board. CCSF also needs to evaluate if it is offering the appropriate courses for in-demand jobs like the incoming AI workforce.

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

The academic senate has purview over the curriculum at CCSF, but trustees can make recommendations and work in tandem with them for mutual student success. One area I think could use improvement and potentially increase enrollment would be to create more flexible learning options. We need to increase more hybrid and online course offerings while offering additional in-person class times. One thing I have heard quite frequently is that CCSF does not operate like most other community colleges when scheduling class times. At other community colleges, the class times are set throughout the day and faculty are required to meet the need. At CCSF, some faculty set their personally available times and students need to fit within those narrowed availabilities. If we are going to focus on student success and providing the most options for our students to succeed, we need to revisit this process.

Personal

Tell us a bit about yourself!

What is your professional background?

As mentioned above, I currently work for the City and County of San Francisco, previously worked in our state legislature as District Director for our 17th Assembly District during COVID, and worked for various top 100 national law firms for over 15 years. I am extremely proud that my associate degree from a community college opened the door to make that all possible. It remains my highest level of education.

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?

No. I am a graduate of the Rancho Santiago Community College District. I did previously attempt to enroll at CCSF for some life-long learning classes, but the experience was less than desirable. Unfortunately, many students and families have complained for years about the registration process.

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

I moved to San Francisco at the end of 2012. Law firms brought me here from Southern California because they could not find good managers in the Bay Area, but San Francisco's uniqueness, potential for change keeps me here.

What do you love most about San Francisco?

I can take public transit almost anywhere. I've been able to be car free here whereas in Southern California not having a car was a barrier, even getting to my community college back then.

What do you dislike the most about San Francisco?

San Francisco has always been a City of uniqueness and change, but there are still so many people here that are resistant to any change. In a sense, there are pockets of the city that fight against the very thing they love about San Francisco - our ability to change, belong, and improve ourselves.

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

I'm an LGBTQ+ activist, renter, union member, and community volunteer with a proven track record of getting things done. I've organized youth phone banks to help flip the House in 2018, led one of the largest Democratic Clubs in San Francisco, and fought back against Trump-era immigration policy while serving as an Immigrant Rights Commissioner.

Thank you

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