Li Khan
Peralta Community College District (PCCD) officials have spent thousands of dollars on trips abroad while benefits to the district remain unclear, an investigation by The Citizen found.
Since pandemic travel restrictions were lifted in 2022, the district has spent over $87,600 on trips to recruit international students and to establish programs abroad. Meanwhile, the F-1 visa international student population has declined by 59.1% over the past five years.
The district has yet to create a process for conducting cost-benefit analyses when it comes to district spending on international travel, despite calls to evaluate the foreign recruitment program by an Alameda County Grand Jury investigation from 14 years ago.
Additionally, our review of recent edits to the district’s travel policy found a decrease in accountability for certain expenses while increasing the amount employees can spend on travel and still get reimbursed.
Documents provided to The Citizen show multiple examples in which travel expenses were over budget, unaccounted for, and/or appeared to be in violation of district policy. In the case of one trip, two district officials used PCCD funds to pay for flight upgrades, five-star luxury hotels, and one appeared to order room service.
To report on this story, The Citizen reviewed over 300 pages of receipts, expense reports, and board-approved travel requests for all international trips taken by district employees since pandemic-era travel restrictions were lifted in 2022.
We spoke to several current and former district leaders on the topic of international travel. All parties named in the story had the opportunity to comment on information relevant to them.
How the district funds international travel
Since 2022, PCCD has picked up the tab on about $87,640 worth of flights, food, transportation, hotels, conference fees, and other expenses for district officials while on international district business, according to travel expense reports reviewed by The Citizen.
Of the 15 trips taken, six resulted in expenses surpassing their district approved budgets. These overages ranged from about $600 to more than $1,800.
About $46,370 worth of trips were funded through the district’s unrestricted general fund, also known as Fund 01.
Fund 01 finances the overall operations of the district, from faculty pay and building maintenance to all travel by administrators on district business. It is primarily funded by taxpayer dollars, student tuition and fees, according to PCCD Budget Director, Dave Vigo.
The remaining $41,270 stemmed from the district’s contract education fund, also known as Fund 30.
Fund 30 stems from external streams of revenue generated by contract education agreements, by which private or public businesses purchase classes from PCCD. These funds can only be spent on contract education programs at PCCD, such as pay for teachers and administrators working on contract education programs or travel for contract education purposes.
Contract education programs at PCCD have recently come under scrutiny. In April, PCCD Chancellor Tammeil Gilkerson placed a hold on all contract education agreements following allegations of academic dishonesty within the American Straight A Academy (ASAA), a contract education partner at the time.
Gilkerson told The Citizen that her office and the Office of International Education (OIE) conducted an unofficial investigation into these claims, but their findings did not substantiate the allegations.
ASAA has purchased over $1 million in courses from the College of Alameda since Fall 2022.
In September 2023, Jannett Jackson and Diana Bajrami, then serving as Interim Chancellor of PCCD and Acting President of the College of Alameda respectively, took a seven-day trip to China to conduct a “site visit” of two ASAA educational centers at universities in Beijing and Hangzhou, China. International Student Support Specialist, Annie Liu, also went on the trip to provide “technical support” to ASAA and to attend a conference.
This group trip to China cost the district about $22,400 from Fund 30, according to travel receipts. Some of Bajrami and Jackson’s expenses appeared to violate the district’s travel policy. Both former officials declined to comment on their expenses.
The Citizen is currently working on a separate article about ASAA, which is set to publish later this year.
F-1 student recruitment trips produce unclear results
The number of F-1 visa holding students attending PCCD has declined by 59.1% since the Spring 2019 semester, from 807 students to 330, according to data provided to The Citizen by the OIE.
That exceeds the national 32.4% decline in the number of F-1 students pursuing associate’s degrees between the 2019-20 school year and the 2022-23 school year, the most recent year data is available from Open Doors.
F-1 visa students are non-U.S. citizens that come to the U.S. to pursue academic coursework full-time. They’re the “heart” of OIE’s programming, according to OIE Director Thomas Torres-Gil.
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