Sierra College Faculty Association

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE - Feb '10

The tension of the last several months seems to have abated, for a while anyway.  Voting on the MOUs is finished, and the decisions required in this balloting were not easy ones to make.  For me it was a case of the bad versus the very bad, where neither scenario was appealing.  I especially regret the cost to all of our colleagues with contracts that exceed 175 days who will face salary losses much greater than the 5% salary rollback the majority of us agreed to accept.  I am also apprehensive about the future because the budget for 11/12 is likely to be just as bad as the projected budget for 10/11.  This will require another round of negotiations.

 

Putting that concern aside, however, I want to let you all know some of the latest developments connected to the straw design and program reductions and eliminations.  First, one part of the straw design stated that faculty who submitted a letter of retirement by mid-July 2010 would be exempt from the 5% salary rollback pending approval from STRS and PERS that this would be acceptable.  Human Resources notified us this week that they have received verification from STRS and PERS that retirement benefits are calculated on what the contract stipulates as your salary.  Since the 5% rollback is a temporary MOU that did not require opening the contract, the retirement benefits for anyone who retires next year will be calculated on what is in the contract and not what the MOU states.  Therefore the 5% exemption from a salary rollback was not needed to protect retirement benefits and now becomes an incentive of sorts to retire.   SCFA’s refusal to open the contract created a benefit that we were unaware of for those considering retirement next year.     

 

Second, as you may remember, Leo announced at convocation that full time and part time faculty, as well as the classified positions associated with the Agriculture, Automotive Technology and Construction Technology programs were being eliminated, thus effectively, though not formally, eliminating those programs.  He also announced that six athletic programs would be eliminated:  men and women’s golf and tennis teams, plus men’s water polo and women’s cross count and track teams.  At the February 2^nd special Board of Trustees meeting, there was an outpouring of support from the community for these programs, with 81 people speaking to the Board, urging them to consider keeping especially the career tech  programs in at least a skeletal form.  After 7 1/2 hours of such testimony, the Board voted to notify the four fulltime faculty in the career tech programs that they would be pink slipped in March.  At the same time, the Board urged the Executive Team to come up with alternative solutions that might save these programs in some form.  The following week at their regularly scheduled meeting, the Board heard more community testimony and then directed Leo to keep the career tech programs in skeletal form for next year while further planning and research is done regarding their futures.   Though the Board has not explicitly stated that they will make up the lost savings out of the reserves, Leo made it very clear at the February 2^nd meeting that there was no other place to go in order to close the deficit gap.  

 

At the February 2nd Board meeting the proposal to eliminate the athletic programs died for lack of a motion, allowing five of the athletic programs to continue since they had come up with a fundraising plan that they claimed was sufficient to support the costs of their programs.  Womens’ cross country track team will still be eliminated since its elimination was part of the tier one and two proposals that the Board had already voted on.  The District still plans to take the funds from athletics that had been identified originally as part of the savings.  I suspect this will be a much larger sum of money than the teams anticipate.  This means athletics will have to support these programs through fund raising, cutting the costs associated with them and/or looking for ways to spread the cost of the programs across all of athletics.

 

While I was very happy that something survived the cuts, I was personally dismayed that the reason athletics survived was because of their ability to do fund raising and cost cutting, an ability we do not have in philosophy, history, math, etc. etc..  My concern was the message it sends to all of us.  If your program or position is threatened…have a bake sale because the Board might not value your program or position enough to fund it on its own merits.  And though I am relieved that the fulltime faculty associated with the career tech programs may have gotten a reprieve, I am concerned about workload issues.  They are being asked to reduce their programs to 50% of their former FTEF, while going through the program vitality process which will require more work.  And if the funding to keep these programs alive is coming out of reserves, what will happen to them next year?  It seems to me we are asking faculty members to do more work for little or no guarantee that it will have a positive effect for the future of their programs.

 

Finally, I am disconcerted that no one from the community spoke to the loss of our CalWorks or DSPS counselors who serve some of our neediest students, nor to any of the cuts to student services such as tutoring, counseling, etc.  I guess it is because the students and their parents who need this help the most are the least likely to speak up on their own behalf.   

 

I understand that cuts had to be made.  But I am unhappy with the process.  As programs are restored in some form, let us remember that there are still faculty whose positions will be eliminated, whose days will be cut, and who are living under the pressure of doing more work with fewer resources for an uncertain outcome.

 

It does seem however, that we have moved into a place of acceptance and/or resignation and that the tension has eased.  I hope we can all take a deep breath, focus on our students and hope for better budgets in the coming years.  Oh yes, and by the way…it’s time to start thinking about what the SCFA E-board will look like next year.  Another election, this time for the E-board, is just around the corner.  Anyone interested in forming an election committee?  Just let me know. 

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE - Fall '09

The message I had prepared to send out last week began with pleasantries about the beginning of the semester, schedules, etc.  In light of the discussion at Strategic Council on Friday it seemed inappropriate and I withdrew it in order that important information not get lost in a chit chatty format.  I will present the facts, and a brief narrative explaining what is going on relevant to them.

1.  Budget presentations over the last few weeks have made the following points:

• Categorical funding from the state has been cut by 60% resulting in a 2.2

              million dollar reduction for Sierra

• No COLA this year, and most certainly not for next year either
• Growth caps have been reduced for this year; what we will receive in this  
  

              category is unknown, but the District thinks they will be less than we
              normally receive

• Increases to step, column and longevity campus wide amount to about
  

              $750,000

• Retiree medical benefits costs increase annually

2.  The Board of Trustees reluctantly agreed to spend down the reserves from what would have been about 13 million dollars to 8 million dollars.  This action takes the reserves to 8%, the lowest that the Board is willing to go.  When combined with the cuts that are currently happening on the operations side, (eliminating some copy machines, department budgets, etc.) we have the necessary fund to cover the budget shortfall for this year.

3.  On September 3^rd SCFA’s first negotiations met with the District for the first time.   The District introduced their general interest in reducing faculty contracts to 175 days.   The negotiating team replied that we could not engage in any negotiations because we had not met with our E-board yet, and therefore we did not have direction from them.

4.  On September 10^th  at 2:45 p.m. the District brought the following interest to negotiations:  reopen articles 12, 13, 15 and 17 to discuss language relevant to extra days on faculty contracts. Once again the negotiating team responded  we could not engage in any negotiations because we had not met with our E-board yet, and therefore we did not have direction from them.  As you can imagine faculty members who work more than 175 days are very worried. 

5.  Two hours later, at the first SCFA E-board meeting on September 10^th the E-board directed the negotiating team to say that SCFA has no interest in changing the contract language in those articles.  Our concern here is that the District may have some rights that do not require contract language changes.  I have contacted a CCA attorney who is researching this as I write.  Please be assured that SCFA is committed to doing everything that we can to protect the interests of the entire faculty we represent.

6.  At last Friday’s Strategic Council meeting Leo was very clear that all cuts possible without damaging programs have been taken on the operations side.  There is no where else to go now but the compensation side which constitutes 80% of the budget.  He stated clearly we will all have to take cuts next year or face March 15^th  notices.   Denial doesn’t seem like a good strategy now.  We have to be proactive (I hate that term!) and begin the discussion now on how to tier the cuts faculty will have to take from a faculty perspective.  

7   I have asked Nancy Martinis to arrange a meeting with the 61 faculty members with extra days on their contracts since they are the ones most often mentioned as the "beginning" point for cuts among fulltime faculty.  The purpose of this meeting is to begin the discussion that must take place campus wide:  can we continue to do what we are currently doing with reduced resources. 

8.  The Fall 2010 schedule was cut by 11%.  This means there were 11% fewer sections to offer part time faculty and students.  Consequently there are fewer part timers present on campus this Fall.

9.  The calendar committee will bring a revised calendar to the SCFA E-board meeting for approval September 24^th.  The proposed schedule reduces summer school to one eight week session wherein there will be fewer courses offered.  This schedule change combined with the fact that fulltime faculty have first choice at summer school offerings, constitutes a reduction in earning possibilities for many part time faculty who rely on summer school.

10.  At first it felt as if faculty were being asked to bear the brunt of compensatory cuts.  But Leo made it clear last Friday that all of the cuts suggested will probably have to occur, including some that will affect managers and classified.  How to accomplish all of this with equity and justice is now the issue. 

11.  Approximately 30 of the 61 faculty on extra day contracts attended  SCFA’s September 10^th meeting to express their concern over the proposals made by the district.

One of the sub texts that surfaced for me during that meeting was that many of those present feel as if their work, and by extension they, themselves, were not valued because they have to justify what they do and how it connects to student success in a way that instructional faculty do not, student learning outcomes aside.  So, if you meet a counselor, coach or coordinator in the hallway or at a copy machine understand what they are going through:  increased work loads (they have already lost all of their part time counselors), they feel as if their work is viewed as expendable and they face a possible salary cut that other segments of campus are not being asked to take (yet).

Sorry the news isn’t better.  We face some serious challenges right now.  People will be hurt by cuts.  I hope we are all beginning to accept that some cuts are inevitable, not just for “the other people” but for me.  One of my favorite lines from a BBC series about WWII is when one of the characters states “I’m afraid this war will never end…because when the shooting is over we will have to face what kind of people we have become”.   When the cuts are over, let’s be able to say that we are a people who exhibited ingenuity, courage, honesty and respect for one another.  On that happy note…have a great semester!