After collecting constructive feedback from district employees, the Peralta Community College District (PCCD) announced plans to improve the system by which district contracts are processed.
The improvements will be rolled out in phases, starting next month. Changes will be fully effective Jan. 1, 2025.
In an email to The Citizen, Assistant to the Chancellor and Board Clerk Sasha Amiri-Nair wrote that district contracts set the “terms and conditions under which […] obligations are to be fulfilled” when PCCD agrees to do business with outside entities.
Examples of situations requiring a contract to be made with the district include buying supplies, executing construction projects, securing grants for school programming, and more.
Amiri-Nair is on the Contract Process Improvement (CPI) team, a group of district officials and legal advisors overseeing this process. The group also includes Peralta Coordinator of Contracts and Legal Affairs, Brandi Howard; Acting Purchasing Director, Chalon Rogers; Interim Associate Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration Marla Williams Powell; and others.
The CPI team presented the changes to Peralta employees at the Laney College Field House on Aug. 11.
According to the presentation, the initial phases of the contract process improvement plan include providing more comprehensive training for Oracle’s contract processing software, PeopleSoft, as well as designating weekly office hours with CPI team members for user support.
The CPI team also plans to improve vendor onboarding by providing instructions for vendors, plus an updated contract review process.
The presentation is a follow up to an April 25 listening session where, according to Amiri-Nair, PeopleSoft “superusers” expressed their thoughts on the current contract review and approval process. Listening session attendees expressed concerns with inefficient processing and unclear standard operating procedures.
The CPI team hopes to strengthen transparency, reduce redundancies, and increase the speed of processing, while providing district employees with a clearer understanding of the workflow.
For Donna Jones, a College of Alameda Career Education Coordinator who attended the Aug. 11 seminar, “having a clearer and faster process is the goal.”
“It should not take months to get something approved,” Jones told The Citizen.
She felt that the presentation addressed the issues concerning her, and hopes the changes will help reduce confusion over how to navigate the system and what types of contracts to use.
Merritt College Vice President of Instruction Lisa Cook told The Citizen she felt optimistic knowing that employees from across the district were able to discuss the barriers that have prevented contracts from moving forward efficiently.
Cook believes the district acknowledged many of the employees’ concerns in a way that will allow for progress to be made.
“They built a team at the district that was representative,” Cook said. “I really felt like the response was heartfelt.”
