STUDENT SERVICES
This chapter reviews the Student Services functions of Alamo Community College District (ACCD) in the following sections:
- A. Student Services Administration
- B. Recruitment/Enrollment/Registration Processes
- C. Counseling and Advising
- D. Student Financial Services
- E. Health Services
- F. Bookstores
F. BOOKSTORES
ACCD awarded the bookstore lease operations contract to Texas Book Company for an initial three-year lease period beginning March 1, 1999 with options for three one-year contract renewals. Privatizing bookstore operations is a common practice among community colleges. The bookstore contractor provides ACCD with bookstores at the four colleges and the Southwest campus. A bookmobile services the Northeast campus generally for two days during registration and the first two days of classes for each semester. The bookmobile also services other off-campus locations such as the various military bases and businesses around the city conducting distance learning classes as requested during registration and the first day of class such as for distance learning classes held at various military bases and businesses around the city usually during registration and the first day of class. Students and faculty can also order textbooks and supplies online using the vendor's or the colleges' Web sites.
The bookstore contractor provides the services to the colleges and employs the bookstore staff. Under the bookstore lease operations contract, the contractor provides:
- goods and services needed by ACCD consistent with generally accepted practices in the retail college bookstore industry provided such goods and services are acceptable to the Auxiliary Enterprise Committee;
- pre-paid remuneration of $1,539,028 for the base proposal of years one through three; and, $583,000 per year paid monthly in arrears for any yearly extension thereafter; and 11.6 percent of the amount over $5,500,000 in any year's sales.
- discount of at least 25 percent from retail price on items purchased by the colleges for institutional use and at least 10 percent discount from retail price for personal purchases by ACCD full-time employees;
- improvements totaling $100,000 to ACCD college or campus bookstore locations;
- improvements to bookmobile totaling $10,000 to expand the service and dependability of the bookmobile;
- funds of $25,000 toward student scholarships or special projects at the beginning of the contract and $5,000 annual payments for the life of the agreement;
- installation of new computers and electronic point-of-sale cash registers;
- all necessary equipment and furniture other than that supplied by ACCD;
- sales of postage stamps to students and employees of the ACCD; and
- annual customer service surveys and provides such results to the Auxiliary Enterprise Committee.
Under the contract ACCD provides:
- utility service including electrical service, heating, air conditioning and existing local telephone service; and
- a listing of fixed assets, including furniture, fixtures and equipment available for use at each of the bookstore locations.
Exhibit 3-37 shows a summary of the bookstore revenues by college.
Exhibit 3-37 Source: ACCD, Assistant Controller of Fiscal Affairs.
Bookstore Revenue
2001-02
College Revenues San Antonio $390,985 St. Philip's $265,980 Palo Alto $195,332 Northwest Vista $120,049 Total $972,346
Note: Commissions are tracked by college and include sales from the affiliated campuses and online sales.Ordering textbooks occurs approximately eight weeks before the upcoming semester and starts when the bookstores at each college or campus send adoption forms to the departments, requesting information from the faculty as to which books they want to use for the upcoming semester based on projected enrollment. Once the bookstores receive this information from the faculty, the bookstores base their sales on the previous term sales and whether or not the anticipated enrollment has increased. If an instructor is using the same book that was used previously, bookstores will subtract the amount of books already on the shelf, as well as the amount of books they anticipate to buy back from the students before going to wholesalers and publishers for the remaining quantities needed. These orders are usually placed two months before classes begin for those departments that have turned in their adoptions. When the week of final exams ends, the book contractor checks the quantities that were anticipated from students' buy backs, plus what they actually bought back and then places any remaining orders for those books with the wholesalers and publishers for the next semester.
The bookstore contractor buys back books all year, but the best time for the students to sell their books is during buyback week, which is during finals' week. If students wait to sell their books back at the beginning of the next semester, the bookstore contractor may already have the quantities needed for their inventory, and the student will get the guide price for a book, which is the price that wholesalers pays the vendor for the books.
Bookstore policies include the following:
- lowest price guarantee to match prices of the bookstores' competitors;
- full cash refunds are contingent upon presentation of receipts within the 15-day refund period from the first day of class or two calendar days if purchased thereafter;
- as a service to the students the bookstore offers to buy books on a daily basis; and
- during the buyback period, the bookstores give students bonus bucks, or one dollar back on every $10. Bonus bucks are only given the week of finals, which is the busiest buyback time. These bonus bucks can be used in the bookstore for anything that the student wants to use them for, including textbooks. The San Antonio College (SAC) bookstore manager said that there is no cost to the school since the bonus bucks are the vendor's promotional item. The manager said that the SAC bookstore usually orders 10,000 bonus bucks to give out, and issues most of them by the end of finals' week.
Exhibit 3-38 compares the outsourced bookstore management contracts of ACCD and its peers.
Exhibit 3-38 Source: ACCD, Acquisitions and Administrative Services and peer colleges' surveys, March 2003.
Survey of Peer College Bookstore Management Companies
February 2003
College Bookstore
OperatorCurrent Contract Term Minimum Guaranteed
Revenue $Scholarships Other Revenue # Bids in 10 years Alamo CCD Texas Book Company 3-year term plus 3 one-year options $583,000-FY02 $583,000-FY03 plus 11.6% of gross sales over $5,500,000 $5,000 annual donation No 2 Dallas County CCD Follett 6 year term 9.5% of sales up to $9 million $4,000 annual donation No 1 San Jacinto CCD College NA NA NA NA None North Harris Montgomery CCD Follett 3-year term plus 5 one-year options $625,000-FY02 $675,000-FY03 $5,000 annual donation and $2,500 for textbook scholarships No None FINDING
Neither ACCD nor the bookstore contractor report essential data necessary to efficiently evaluate the bookstores' operating performance. Examples of critical performance measures lacking include the number of missed orders, number of inaccurate orders and number of reorders and potential lost revenues because books were not available. The contract with ACCD does not specify performance measures.
The bookstore contractor's managers said that sometimes the colleges add class sections and do not promptly inform the bookstores so that additional books can be ordered. The college chairs and other members of the Auxiliary Enterprise Committee (committee) said that they work with the bookstore managers to address problems as they occur and this ongoing dialogue over the years has resulted in the following actions by the contractor to minimize problems, according to the committee:
- increasing the number of cash registers operating during peak rush periods;
- determining, but not documenting, if instances of "books not being available" result from a late book adoption by a faculty member or a supplier backorder.
- notifying the instructors immediately when there appears to be a problem with book availability and Out of Stock tags are placed on the shelves to alert the students as to the approximate due date for the textbooks;
- installing point-of-sale registers at all locations, as required by the contract which allows the scanning of merchandise instead of manual entry and decreases the time necessary for credit card and voucher sales;
- developing Web sites for online ordering, as required by the contract;
- offering book reservations in the stores for students who wish to pre-order their textbooks for used textbook availability and students are able to pick-up their books before the semester begins; and
- as of the Spring 2003 semester, implementing an online network with 17 of the 21 other Texas Book Company stores, consisting of 18 stores in Texas, to check the other stores' book inventory.
Although the committee said they have implemented practices to improve services, survey results and the inconsistent notification to the bookstores regarding additional class sections indicate that some issues have not been resolved. The bookstore contractor maintains comment cards near the cash register but documentation of the comments and action taken is not maintained.
TSPR surveyed students, faculty, staff and administrators about bookstore services. In one survey, 29 percent of the faculty, staff and administrators indicated that the bookstore function needed improvement. The results of another survey indicated that 17 percent of students and 23 percent of faculty and staff disagreed that adequate books and supplies are always available in the bookstore, as shown in Exhibit 3-39.
Exhibit 3-39
ACCD Survey Results
STATEMENT Strongly
DisagreeDisagree Neutral Agree Strongly
AgreeDon't
KnowAdequate books and supplies are always available in the bookstore. Students 4% 13% 14% 52% 13% 4% Faculty 4% 19% 10% 40% 13% 14% Verbatim survey comments from students, faculty and staff include:
- "The bookstore is not open for ordering books in a timely manner."
- "All too often, the bookstore does not have the adequate number of textbooks for a class and it takes weeks to get them."
- "Departments have not been happy with bookstore."
- "Bookstore should rethink its policy of returning texts and study guides to the publisher after several weeks. Students don't realize they need study guide books until halfway through the semester."
- "Open more cash registers at the bookstore in the beginning of each semester. People have to stand in huge lines. I understand that lines are inevitable at that time, but there is only one register for buybacks; that makes it inconvenient."
- "We need longer hours at the bookstore up until 9:00 p.m."
- "Course books required by teachers or administrators are often inadequate, unnecessarily expensive and changed too often for teacher's adaptation. Many instructors do not adequately read or follow these short lived and expensive books."
- "Try to keep inventory well-stocked and request the instructors not to change print editions every year."
In October 2002, the St. Philip's College vice president of Academic Affairs held a campus-wide meeting to discuss any concerns regarding the campus bookstore. The major topics were the availability of books, book prices and book buy-back prices. However, specific performance measures were not presented.
It is a standard practice to establish performance measures so that businesses can become aware of performance strengths and weaknesses and trends and implement corrective action where needed in a timely manner. In addition, compiling periodic reports of the results ensures that the evaluations are consistently performed.
Recommendation 24:
Establish and incorporate specific reporting performance measures in the bookstore contract to monitor and improve operations and customer service.
Establishment and evaluation of performance measures will benefit both ACCD and the contractor. ACCD will have a basis for future contract decisions, and the contractor will have a means of measuring customer satisfaction as well as a basis for future customer satisfaction strategies and campaigns.
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES AND TIMELINE
1. The Auxiliary Enterprise Committee establishes key performance measures such as the number of missed orders, number of inaccurate orders, number of reorders and revenues by location that can be used to analyze service level trends from semester to semester. September 2003 2. The bookstore managers assign staff to compile performance measure data and produce a semi-annual report to the Auxiliary Enterprise Committee. October 2003 3. The bookstore managers present the reports to the Auxiliary Enterprise Committee. November 2003 4. The Auxiliary Enterprise Committee reviews the reports, makes recommendations and monitors for improvements. December 2003 and Ongoing FISCAL IMPACT
This recommendation can be implemented with existing resources.
FINDING
The cost of ACCD's bookstores' supplies exceeds the price charged by a local office supply store. The prices of 12 items from the college bookstores were compared to the supply store's prices and the bookstores prices were consistently higher. ACCD employees receive a 10 percent discount on supplies but students do not. The contractor reported sales of supplies, soft goods and sundries totaling $390,917 (including $282,798 for supplies only) for the period of March 2002 through November 2002.
The contract with ACCD states in sections IV. B. and IV. I.,
Offeror agrees to provide the goods and services needed by the ACCD consistent with generally accepted practices in the retail college bookstore industry provided such goods and services are acceptable to the Auxiliary Enterprise Committee on each campus. Goods and services are to be provided at competitive prices. Merchandise sold through the bookstore will be uniformly priced at all locations and will be in accordance with the industry's regular pricing procedure. Retail margin on new textbooks will not exceed 25percent. The prices of used books will not exceed 75 percent of new book list price.Exhibit 3-40 shows the comparison of the book contractor's bookstore prices at San Antonio College (SAC) with a local office supply store's prices indicating that the contractor's prices were higher for nine of the 12 items selected for comparison.
Exhibit 3-40 Source: SAC, TBC Bookstore Web site and local office supply store, March 2003.
Comparison of Contracted Bookstore Prices at San Antonio College
to Local Office Supply Store
March 2003
Item SAC Bookstore
PriceLocal Office
Supply Store
PricePercent SAC Price
Exceeds Local
Supply StoreG2 Pen, retractable, dynamic gel ink pen, fine point $1.65 $1.14 45% Jimnie medium point retractable pen $1.39 $.88 58% Diskettes-10 pack, HD IBM formatted 3.5# disks $6.49 $3.49 86% 120 sheet three subject spiral notebook $1.49 $1.51 (2)% Microcassette 3 pack of 60 minute tapes $3.85 $2.79 38% Scientific calculator, excellent for Algebra I and II,
Trig, Statistics and Physics, FX-250 HC$17.79 $5.99 197% Three ring binder, 1.5", two pocket $2.05 $2.99 (31)% D Ring Binder, 1.5", two pocket $4.85 $6.29 (23)% Filler Paper, 200 sheets, 8.5"x11", college ruled $2.29 $.98 134% Five subject composition book, college ruled, 180 sheets $3.09 $2.79 11% Zip disk, 100MB IBM formatted zip disk $19.79 $7.25 173% Index cards, ruled, 3"x5", 100 per package $.55 $.53 4% Although the SAC bookstore manager said that they send employees of the bookstore to the local area bookstores to compare pricing and adjustments are made if necessary, verbatim survey comments from students, faculty and staff indicated that bookstore prices for general merchandise were not competitive as indicated below.
- "Bookstore prices appear overpriced on materials our students need-just price a computer disk at our bookstore (SAC)."
- "The college t-shirts are way too expensive."
- "Students complain about the high costs of books and materials at the bookstore."
- "Textbooks are incredibly expensive."
Exhibit 3-41 shows the comparison of a random sample of textbook bookstore prices at San Antonio College to a local competitor bookstore. The exhibit indicates that ACCD's bookstore prices for new textbooks were higher for two of the 11 textbooks; lower for three textbooks; and the same price for six textbooks. However, textbooks are subject to the lowest-price guarantee by ACCD's contractor and the competitor's bookstore.
Exhibit 3-41 Source: SAC bookstore and local competitor bookstore, February 2003.
Comparison of Texas Book Company Textbook Prices
to Local Competitor Bookstore
February 2003
Description Local Bookstore
Price - NewTBC Bookstore
Price - NewPercent TBC Price
Exceeds Local Bookstore- NewLocal Bookstore Price -
UsedTBC Bookstore
UsedPercent TBC
Exceeds Local
Bookstore-UsedEssentials of Intro Chemistry $105.00 $119.30 14% $78.75 $89.45 14% General, Organic and Biochemistry Study Guide $37.65 $37.65 0% $28.20 $28.20 0% Advertising Principles $108.00 $108.00 0% $81.00 $81.00 0% Stage Make Up $99.00 $103.00 4% $74.26 $77.25 4% Concepts of Genetics Package $124.65 $113.65 (9)% $93.45 $85.20 (9)% Illustrated Book of Painting $29.95 $29.95 0% $20.95 $22.45 7% Selling Today $115.00 $115.00 0% $86.25 $86.25 0% Economics of Money, Banking and Finance $110.00 $105.30 (4)% $82.50 $78.95 (4)% Business Telecourse Package $83.95 $77.15 (8)% $62.95 $57.85 (8)% Understanding Business $100.00 $100.00 0% $73.50 $75.00 2% Accounting Chapters 1-16 $35.30 $35.30 0% $24.20 $26.45 9% Effective bookstore operations maintain competitive prices for merchandise and supplies resulting in greater customer satisfaction and increased revenues. ACCD's Auxiliary Committee chair said that the purpose of the bookstores is to provide on-site textbooks and since students do not live on campus other supplies and sundries are offered as convenience items.
El Paso Community College's bookstore contract included a provision that the contractor must provide supplies at prices competitive with the local market.
Recommendation 25:
Hold the bookstore contractor to terms and conditions of the contract in providing goods and services at competitive prices.
ACCD should hold the vendor accountable for providing supplies at competitive prices.
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES AND TIMELINE
1. The Auxiliary Enterprise Committee compares the bookstore prices for supplies with local vendors and compiles a summary of the price differences and determines if the bookstores' prices are competitive with local market prices. November 2003 2. The contracting coordinator meets with the vendor to negotiate the contract pricing provision for supplies effective with the annual contract renewal. February 2004 3. The Auxiliary Enterprise Committee ensures vendor compliance with the contract provisions. September 2004 and Ongoing FISCAL IMPACT
This recommendation can be implemented with existing resources.