On February 19, the Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees created an ad hoc committee to explore potential uses for the $13 million that remains of philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s $20 million gift to the college. Scott made the donation — the largest in the school’s history — in 2021. The SBCC Foundation recently disclosed that several million dollars were used to fund the Promise program without Board approval, leaving community members to question how the unauthorized spending occurred and what will be done with the remaining money.
Board of Trustees President Jonathan Abboud said an investigation into the unauthorized use of funding is ongoing and the Board will not comment on past spending of Scott funds until that investigation concludes. Instead, the Trustees’ focus was on how to allocate the remaining $13 million.
Trustee Charlotte Gallup-Moore suggested that some of the funding be used to create an endowment benefitting Umoja program students, “the student body with the widest opportunity gaps.” The Umoja program serves Black and African American students at SBCC…