CSUN University News Clippings

Amid huge campus cuts, some full-timers get raises

(July 30, 2009)

By Laurel Rosenhall

Community colleges across California are slashing their budgets by cutting thousands of classes, reducing hours for part-time teachers and forcing students to wait longer to get courses they need to graduate, transfer or get jobs.

Despite the cuts, many of the same colleges are spending millions to give their full-time employees raises.

In Sacramento, the Los Rios Community College District is spending more than $3 million this year to give employees their normal “step increase,” the annual boost in salary tied to increased time on the job. Community colleges in Rocklin, Woodland, Marysville, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego also are handing out step increases this year.

Many educators don’t consider them raises because these increases are based on years of experience, and employees typically stop earning them after 15 or 20 years. Still, the pay increases amount to salary boosts of 2 percent to 4 percent when part-time community college faculty are losing jobs and employees at the University of California and California State University have seen their pay reduced.

The budget crisis prompted California to cut $935 million from community colleges. Education advocates say the cuts mean 250,000 fewer students will be able to enroll at community colleges this year because schools will have to cut so many classes.

When community colleges cut the number of classes they offer, they reduce work for faculty – in many cases, part-time teachers. College officials can’t say how many part-timers are losing jobs because some will lose all the classes they teach while others just will have their course loads reduced.

Los Rios colleges – including Sacramento City, American River, Cosumnes River and Folsom Lake – are cutting 630 class sections in the upcoming school year. That will mean nearly 20,000 fewer seats available to local students, Los Rios officials said.

Matthew Abergel, a part-time instructor at Cosumnes River College, is frustrated by the situation.

“I think it’s a shame that they are going to lay off some part-timers and cut sections for students while people whose jobs are fairly secure – because they have tenure or seniority – their pay will most likely go up,” he said.

“I just see a real fault in logic here.”

The tangle over saving jobs or cutting wages has erupted in many workplaces during this recession. The state’s public universities are managing the fiscal crisis in part by cutting employee pay for one year. The University of California is imposing a sliding scale furlough for most employees that will reduce pay between 4 percent and 10 percent, depending on salary. California State University faculty agreed Wednesday to take two furlough days a month – as other CSU labor groups already have – amounting to a 10 percent pay cut.

CSU employees will not get step increases. UC unions still are in negotiations.

Community colleges are less centralized than the UCs and state universities. They’re governed by 72 local districts, so decisions on pay vary from school to school.

The result is that some community colleges are not giving raises this year. City College of San Francisco has frozen wages for all employees, union and college officials there said. Santa Rosa Junior College is negotiating with its employees about a 3 percent pay cut in the form of unpaid time off, according to Paige Marlatt Dorr of the state chancellor’s office.

Los Rios leaders said their conservative approach to money management has allowed them to honor their contracts with employees and give step increases even though times are tight.

The district set aside almost $5 million last year knowing that this year’s budget would be bad. It is not filling vacant positions. It is cutting $10 million from support programs for disabled and disadvantaged students. And it is gradually cutting the number of courses offered, 2 percent this year and 4 percent next.

“We have a balanced approach,” said Deputy Chancellor Jon Sharpe. “We want to minimize the harm and the impact on our students and our employees.”

Los Rios workers are paying more for their health coverage this year – $91 a month. That means the most experienced employees at the top of the pay scale will be bringing home less salary because they no longer qualify for step increases, said Dean Murakami, president of the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers. Thirty-eight percent of faculty are in that boat, he said.

Murakami said his union did not consider furloughs or wage freezes in order to save part-time jobs.

“Reducing salaries is just a demoralizing situation, and we’re trying to prevent that from happening. Laying off full-time faculty is extremely demoralizing. Those are two things we are trying to prevent at all costs,” he said.

Besides, he said, community colleges need to dial down the number of courses they offer to get in line with the state funding they receive. For the last few years, Los Rios has served more students than the state has funded.

“That’s something that economically we can’t sustain,” Murakami said.

“In order to manage the enrollment, we have to reduce down the number of sections. … We can’t continue teaching more students and not getting paid for it.”

Abergel, the part-time professor who teaches critical thinking and advanced composition at Cosumnes River, sees it differently.

“It’s a terrible time to be cutting classes and to be cutting jobs,” he said.

“There are so many people losing their jobs and those people turn to community colleges to take the next step in their lives.”

Publication: Sacramento Bee