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Gavilan College’s Board of Trustees voted to reappoint Dr. Pedro Avila as superintendent July 9. BenitoLink sat down with him to talk about his previous terms and his plans for the future.
It’s been two years since you became superintendent. How would you characterize your first term?
I think we had a lot of success. We also had a lot of challenges we had to overcome and we had a lot of success in addressing those challenges.
What did you learn from that first term?
I learned that we have employees at Gavilan College that are very committed to our institution. I also learned about how much potential we have as a college to better serve our community.
What was your proudest moment of that term?
There’s a few of them. Bringing back students from COVID. I think the other big one is being able to provide a free tuition program for students. That had a lot of success. A lot of students have benefited. During our first year we awarded $1.1 million in free tuition to students.
We also have a record supporting students with a free food program to make sure that no student goes hungry. We’ve been serving about 1500 free meals per week in a cafeteria to our students to make sure nobody was hungry while they’re attending school. So there’s a few things that I’m really proud of, but those are kind of the highlights.
What was challenging about the term?
There are a few things that were challenging. There were a lot of vacancies that needed to be filled. During my first year, we hired a total of 85 new employees because we had so many vacancies that needed to be filled. And that was critical, because when you hire that many people you need to make sure that you’re doing it right. It addressed some gaps in areas where departments were operating without adequate support, and it all translates back to our ability to be able to support students.
What are your goals going into your next term?
I think the biggest one right now is the new opening of our Hollister campus, which is scheduled to open in Spring 2025.
How would you say that process has gone? How do you think it’s going right now?
It’s gone very well. Our construction has remained on schedule. Also on budget, which is really important. We’ve done a really good job managing the budget and staying on schedule. We’ve had some bumps in the road that we were able to mitigate with a lot of support from the city council, the city manager and the mayor. And also occasionally we would get support from Speaker Rivas’s office to make sure that things were moving accordingly on the permits that were time-sensitive. So, we’ve had a lot of support from the community and San Benito County.
From my understanding, before you took office, the FCMAT report was released, and it went into Gavilan’s fiscal challenges. They gave a set of recommendations to improve Gavilan’s standing. How would you say that process has gone and what recommendations have been implemented?
Avila: A lot of focus during my first year was spent on addressing the college’s fiscal challenges related to that report, and I’m glad to share that. We’ve been successful in addressing all the concerns. The main one was the college’s overall budget. When the report was released the college was operating on a deficit. After the end of my first term, we were able to balance the budget and provide stability. We’re no longer deficit spending. Our budget is stable and all of our expenditures are within our budget. We were also able to increase our enrollment, which is the other concern from the report. So we’ve had a lot of success with growing.
Kudos to my Vice President of Administrative Services Marilyn Morikang. She’s done some really good work, working on a five year projection for our budget. We’re always looking ahead. We’re always anticipating and adjusting based on different scenarios. So I feel that fiscally, we’re in a really good place right now. We’ve been able to compensate our employees with salary negotiations. We’ve also been able to sustain our growth, which is really important. We’ve been able to invest in new initiatives like dual enrollment, and offer additional support services for students.
What other steps are being taken to prevent future financial issues?
We do five year projections. And in those projections, we’re always anticipating, you know, worst case scenarios. We’re very conservative when we budget. Our goal is to never be in a position where the district has to be in deficit spending.
I’ve looked through some past board self evaluations. One comment from one of them stood out to me, talking about some survey findings in February, discussing concerns with Board members’ understanding of their financial role. I was wondering if that’s still an ongoing concern? And what if any steps have been taken to address that concern?
What we’ve done to support our board is provide them with study sessions, which is a separate meeting, outside of the board meeting, totally dedicated to just the budget. We just had one in May. It gives them an opportunity to spend a couple hours carefully reviewing the budget, so that they have a good understanding of all the details regarding the budget. They can ask as many questions as they want, without the pressure of extending the regular board meeting. So we’ve been pretty consistent on that.
Our VP of administrative services has provided them with different types of reports that explain the different areas of the budget so there’s transparency, and they have a good understanding of all the different areas of the budget. I think we’ve done a good job with that, and I don’t think that’s a concern anymore. I think it was a concern for a single board member. It’s still something that we take very seriously and we address it because the budget has been an issue from the past. We want to make sure that we always give it importance.
A lot of the work that we’ve been doing is around the budget, making sure that we have a healthy budget, and I feel very proud of that too. We have addressed that issue, we no longer have budget issues at Gavilan College.
What would you like to get done if resources and money were no object?
We have a few things that we’re planning. At some point, expanding the San Benito campus to better serve the San Benito Community. At the Gilroy campus, we are looking to reopen our child care center so we can provide childcare for students and employees.
We’re also looking to build student housing on campus so that we can provide affordable student housing to low income students that are currently facing housing insecurity. We do have a significant number of our students that are facing housing insecurity. That’s an issue for a lot of community college students, because many of them are lower income, they work part time or full time. Housing is a major expense for them.
I would also like to expand our Gilroy Early College Academy, which is our high school that’s located on our campus. They’re in the top 10% of high schools in the nation. 80% of students complete their college degree while completing high school. I would love to replicate that model in Hollister, and also in Morgan Hill, so that we can bring the same opportunities to students in those communities.
Is there anything else you would want to leave the San Benito County community with?
I’m committed to the community. I’ve been here for two years. My family and I really enjoy being part of this community. I grew up in Castroville, so I feel that I’m familiar with the community.
I’m committed to being here for a long time and carrying out my vision of making Gavilan College the institution of choice for our students here in these communities and to be able to provide them with the best education and the highest quality possible so that they’re proud of their community college. We want to expand and continue to provide opportunities for our community so that we can provide opportunities for upward mobility and for anyone in our community who benefits from being in college.
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