Council of Presidents Overview

Following the school code re-write in 2003, the Community College Presidents and Boards of Trustees reference chart was created to provide a framework for trustees, presidents and college personnel to better know and understand the legal authority under which colleges operate, as well as the complex collection of laws, rules, and guidelines that affect our progress in achieving our college missions.

The reference chart was constructed primarily as a tool to facilitate comparison between the community college presidential powers/duties section of the Florida Statutes (Column One) and the community college District Board of Trustees (DBOT) power/duties section (Column Three).  Using the presidential statute as the base statute for analysis, its subsections were listed in order and assigned a subject matter heading.  The DBOT statute was then reordered and listed to correspond to and line up with the subject matter order of the base statute.  The subject matter headings include Authority, Rulemaking, Budget/Finance, Employment/Personnel, Contracts/Transactions, College Property/Resources, Academic Programs, Administraiton and Governance, Stratetic Planning, Accountability, and several others.

To make this tool more useful, Column Two was added to overlay other relevant laws, rules, and guidelines which affect community colleges, reordered to fit within the designated subject areas.  Then Column Four was added to include state level statutory language (State Board of Education, Commissioner of Education, and Department of Education) affecting community colleges, again reordered to fit within the subject matter headings.

The reference chart is quite revealing in helping to sort out respective roles, powers, and duties in the governance and administration of community colleges.  The list set forth below (also directly included in the reference charts as footnotes - they are numbered in the order they appear as footnotes in the reference chart) reflects some initial observations, analyses, and questions about statutory language affecting community colleges, and the interplay between sections of related laws.  Also identified are most legislative mandates that require some specific action (reports, rules, etc.) on the part of the president/college.

Powers and Duties of Community College Presidents and Boards of Trustees reference chart