One of the oldest community colleges in California, MJC has two main campuses in the city of Modesto and serves more than 18,000 day and evening students each semester.
Located near the city of Sonora in the wooded Sierra Nevada foothills, Columbia College is a primary resource of adult learning for residents throughout the Mother Lode region.
Contracts, agreements, and memorandum of understanding (MOU's) are documents between the District (Colleges) and outside agencies or vendors for services outlined in the terms of the agreement. They require signatures from authorized signers of both parties. Once fully executed by authorized signers, the contract obligates the parties to adhere to the terms outlined in the agreement. It is important that contract approvals follow the designated process to avoid obligating the District to terms we cannot or should not fulfill.
All contracts are processed through the Vice Chancellor of Fiscal Services (VCFS) office and housed in this office. In the absence of the VCFS, any other Vice Chancellor or the Chancellor can sign contracts (See Board Policy/Procedure 6340).
Departments are responsible for obtaining all of the appropriate college-level sign-offs via the Contract Cover Sheet in Etrieve.
If a contract involves facilities, software, hardware or network access, management-level sign-off is required by the Facilities Planning & Operations department and/or the Information Technology (IT) department.
The grant approval process has not changed. Please continue to use approval forms provided by the Grants office. If you have any questions regarding the grant process, please contact the Grants office at 575-6961.
Finally, prior to its landing in the Vice Chancellor's office, the Director of Risk Management will review the contract for liability concerns and respond to the insurance certificate requests. If there is language placing undo liability on the District or the language is unacceptable to the District's ASCIP Memorandum of Coverage, the contract will be scanned and emailed to ASCIP for their review and sign-off.
Please forward copies of Instructional Agreements to the Director of Accounting, Grants & Compliance for audit tracking.
These procedures are designed to facilitate the approval of contracts and to help protect our District against excessive liability exposure. The process, once the contract arrives in the Fiscal Services office, takes between 3 to 5 days depending on staff availability. Should it ever be necessary to expedite a contract, please contact the Executive Assistant of Fiscal Services or the Risk Management office to make arrangements.
It is the department's responsibility to forward all copies of fully executed contracts to the office of Risk Management.
Expenditure purchase orders resulting from a contract will required a copy of the fully executed contract attached as backup. The purchase order will not be processed until Purchasing staff receive a copy.
