The Yavapai College District Governing Board voted to eliminate all travel from its budget to help address the rising cost of attorneys fees during its Jan. 14 meeting.
The board budget’s total for this fiscal year was $257,013, with expenditures to date being $204,236. Of those expenditures, $87,500 were legal fees, $6,750 above the original budget allotted for legal fees.
“The only costs are for attending board meetings and for responding to board member issues and inquiries, which I generally do not, although I’ve had to in the past … unless it comes from the chair, because one board member is not the will of the board,” board attorney Lynne Adams said.
Board Chairwoman and District 2 representative Deb McCasland said the year’s budget was $80,750, but the expenditures already accrued add up to the overspent amount, which means there are several more months incoming for attorney fees.
“In the past years, we were way under our expenses that we anticipated for legal banners,” McCasland said. “We have two new board members now this year, and that could be a factor of why we have more discussions with our attorney.”
District 1 representative Bill Kiel was elected at the end of 2024 and began his term a year ago. Patrick Kuykendall was appointed in December to fill the District 4 seat.
District 3 representative Toby Payne was also reelected at the end of 2024, but was appointed in 2023 to fill the district seat.
The conversation throughout the discussion was how to lower costs in all areas, including the legal fees.
“It was being alluded to that these [legal fee additions] are being created by board members,” Payne said after Adams said she received an email the previous night from a board member.
“The other thing that I’m really concerned about was $147,500, and yes, we had spent less than it, but then in ‘26 our budget’s only $80,000,” he said. “I don’t understand.”
The board’s budget was originally the lowest in the past four years, including the budgeted legal fees. In fiscal years 2023 and 2024 both included a budget of $107,000 for legal fees.
The actual expenditures in FY23 were about $58,500; in FY24, it was about $65,500 and $130,600 last year.
In addition to travel and legal fees, the board budget is also made up of salary and employee-related expenses — which adds up to $116,283 this year — with food provided at board meetings budgeted for $7,000, printing of the agendas and board book, budgeted at $3,000, other supplies, budgeted at $3,000 and the “other” category, which is $1,500.
Dues include memberships to organizations like the Association of Community College Trustees, Chief Operations Officer Clint Ewell, Ph.D, said.
“Since we’re meeting on Zoom, that [food and printing fees] should remain fluid, prorated out through the end of the year,” District 5 representative Steve Bracety said.
Originally, McCasland made a motion to cut national travel from the board’s budget. Travel made up $41,500 of the year’s budget, and $13,323 of that has been spent.
“It’s national travel, which is the biggest ticket,” McCasland said. “There are some opportunities for in-state conferences.”
She said there’s an annual one in Mesa in the spring that board members often travel for.
“I agree with Director Payne, if you are going to eliminate travel, the whole idea is to save the taxpayers money, it should be all travel,” Kiel said.
The original motion failed with Payne, Kiel and Bracety opposed to only cutting national travel. The vote was unanimous for the following vote to cut all travel.
County Presentations
The candidate filings and campaign finance for Governing Board elections were updated to require all candidates to file directly with the Yavapai County elections department instead of the clerk of the board.
The clerk will still take the campaign finance forms from the candidates, but those who are wanting to run in the future will need to contact Laurin Custis, the director of elections for the county at elections@yavapaicounty.gov. The only districts up for election this year are Districts 4 and 5, but in two years, District 2 will have an election and in 2030, Districts 1 and 3 will have elections. Governing Board members have six-year terms.
“Because the county attorney’s office has suggested that a school district is only from grades pre-K through 12, those are the folks who would file with the Yavapai County Superintendent’s Office, while the Governing Board candidates for the college would file with me,” Custis said.
The filing date is June 6 through July 6.
Yavapai County Superintendent of Schools Steve King [R], presented to the board about the partnerships the college has with school districts throughout the college.
King said he’s had people come to him to ask about higher education opportunities for students in the K-12 districts and people telling him to do more with that. When he gets those, he shows them the opportunities that do exist through the college’s countywide partnerships.
“Invariably, this has happened three or four times now, invariably they never call me again because they are blown away,” he said.
