Election and Ratification Overview

The timing of this column coincides with the Spring 2009 SCFA election and ratification vote. I will therefore take this opportunity to provide some additional information relative to the bargaining issues that we are asking members to ratify.

Mutual Interest Item

The most complex issue is the implementation of a Mutual Interest Item (MII) that was agreed to by Omniparty on March 31, 2009. Let’s start with a little background information.

This year we are faced with the unusual situation of having the COLA completely eliminated from our funding, due to the state budget shortfall. The Salary and Benefit Formula is designed to use COLA dollars to fund annual increases in staffing costs that come about from the movement of existing employees on the salary schedules (for faculty, the increased cost comes from step, column, and longevity movement). Each of the three bargaining units is therefore facing a “hole in their bucket” when you combine these new costs with a complete lack of new revenues.

After considerable discussion, an agreement was reached at Omniparty to patch the bucket holes by redirecting growth revenues to each unit as ongoing funds. The formula specifies that 77.5% of growth dollars are to be spent on new personnel. Growth revenue is available this year, however, because the District has decided that some new hires should be delayed, and a substantial sum of personnel growth dollars remains unallocated. Growth dollars are ongoing funds – you get them in the year they are first allocated, and then every year after that as well. The default procedure spelled out in the formula is for growth dollars that go unspent in a given year to be allocated to the buckets as one-time funds, with the ongoing portion of the money remaining as growth funding for future hiring.

The holes in the buckets are ongoing holes. One-time money can only cover the costs for this year, and then the holes would be back again next year, most likely enlarged by next year’s increases in staffing costs. This is why Omniparty agreed to the MII, which alters the default operation of the formula on a one-time basis by allocating unused growth dollars to the buckets in an ongoing manner. Putting ongoing dollars in the buckets allows this year’s bucket holes to be patched permanently.

The MII redirects the majority (but not all) of the unused growth dollars to the unit buckets, with each unit getting a proportional amount based on the percentages the formula uses to divide COLA dollars. In relative terms, FUSE has a much larger bucket hole than the other units, so when the money is allocated proportionally SCFA ends up with a significant additional amount of ongoing money. Given the current reality of state budget shortfalls, climbing unemployment rates, and general economic calamity, we do not want to be giving ourselves large raises at the college. We therefore agreed to limit schedule-wide pay increases to 1%, with the idea that this increase would merely represent a restoration of the COLA that was cut from the state budget.

SCFA further agreed at Omniparty to spend the remaining funds on the hiring of additional full-time faculty as well as addressing part-time equity by making adjustments to the part-time salary schedule.

(We also insisted that it be understood that SCFA’s agreement to redirect growth dollars does not in any way mean that SCFA has endorsed the past practices of the District with respect to the reporting and allocation of growth revenue. The Formula Committee investigations into this issue will continue, and the MII will in no way prejudice the importance, validity, or results of the process.)

In subsequent negotiations with the District, we reached the following agreement for the allocation of the $698,338 that were available after we covered our current step, column, and longevity costs:
$325,000 for a 1% salary augmentation across all schedules to offset COLA budget cuts,
$196,525 to hire five new full-time faculty through the conversion of part-time equivalent positions, and
$176,813 applied to the part-time salary schedule to address part-time equity.

The District agreed that the five new full-time hires will be considered permanent advances above our Faculty Obligation Number (FON), and they will therefore not be absorbed into the District’s recent commitment to increase our number of full-time faculty above the FON by an additional two per year. These details are written as part of Tentative Agreement SCFA 0809-03, which will go into effect if the Mutual Interest Implementation is ratified.

We made the case to the District that the new faculty hires were not going to result in more class sections being offered, so the charge for the new hires needed to recognize that, absent the new hires, the District would have paid part-time faculty to teach the sections. Furthermore, the money for the hires is accounted for by the District as 2007-08 growth dollars, which means we received the money as the result of new students who enrolled last year, as opposed to connecting the funding to new students who would arrive next year (when the new hires will be teaching).

I want to commend the Sierra College management team for recognizing this reality, and agreeing to treat the new hires as conversions of part-time equivalent positions.

The cost of each new full-time position was calculated by looking at real numbers from the most recent data available. The average cost of 12 new hires from 2007-08 was calculated by taking their average starting salary ($59,721) and adding variable and fixed benefit costs. After adjusting for this year’s 0.99% raise, we reached an amount for the cost of each new full-time faculty hire of $77,412.

A similar process was used to calculate the cost of a full-time equivalent load taught at the average hourly rate ($62.40 per hour) from the part-time/overload salary schedule. The calculated cost was $38,107 per yearly full-time load.

Subtracting $38,107 from $77,412 gave us the cost of each new full-time position created from the conversion of part-time sections: $39,305. Multiplying $39,305 times 5 gives the $196,525 reported above (NOTE: I mistakenly reported this number as $196,625 on the SCFA ratification ballot and in the ballot summary).

It is the intent of SCFA to use the money applied to part-time equity in a manner that will focus on improving the cells in the part-time salary schedule that were not improved in the most recent efforts to address equity. Generally speaking, we will try to focus on improving the low-to-middle ranges of the schedule, while honoring the commitment to bring the part-time schedule closer to conforming to the full-time schedule. The details of this application of the funds have not been worked out because we do not yet have the required data related to the amount of loading at each cell of the schedule.

Although the MII has been agreed to at Omniparty, it has to be approved by all three of the bargaining units before it can take effect. SCFA policy requires that MIIs be ratified by the membership. This ratification vote will be our only chance to approve the MII.

A vote to ratify the Mutual Interest Implementation will ratify everything described above.

If the Mutual Interest Implementation is not ratified, then the entire Mutual Interest Item will be null and void (for all three units). We will not cover our bucket hole, we will not get any money on schedule, we will not hire five additional new full-time faculty, and we will not apply $176,813 of ongoing funds to the part-time schedule. If the ratification fails, we will not have time to reach an alternative agreement and bring it back for ratification.

Contract Modifications

Let’s move on now to the contract modifications SCFA members are being asked to ratify.

The list of articles might at first look a little daunting. This year was somewhat unusual at the bargaining table, because without any new COLA funding, we felt limited in our ability to ask for big changes. As a matter of fact, we feel very fortunate to have the agreement relative to the Mutual Interest Item, and all of the advances it can provide us with.

Our bargaining time was therefore focused on cleaning up contract language and making it conform more closely to our current practices. For this reason, I will let the ballot summaries suffice for most of the amended articles.

There are two exceptions that I think I should address here: Health and Welfare Benefits, and the Department Chair Provision.

Health Benefits are an enormously important topic, both nationally and here at Sierra College. I am afraid that at first glance, the modified version of Article 14 will scare many of you due to the visual impact of the highlighted changes. The changes are not nearly as significant as a first impression might lead you to think. The article was restructured and reordered in the interest of improving its logical flow. References to legal requirements were removed because the legal requirements take precedence over the contract, making inclusion of the language in the contract redundant and unnecessary.

Also, listings of specific benefit plans were also removed because they were out-of-date and they change too often to be listed in the contract.

As for substantive changes, there are really only two. The article now recognizes the role of Omniparty in the negotiation of benefits. Our benefit packages are agreed to collectively at Omniparty, and any significant changes are then brought back to the units for ratification. Benefits are no longer negotiated individually by each unit.

The second change relates to the first. The District’s contribution to benefit costs (the “cap”) is now recognized as pooled money, as opposed to being applied to each employee individually. It is also stated in terms of a yearly amount per employee instead of a monthly contribution, to avoid complications that would arise from the transition to receiving our pay 10 months a year rather than 12 months a year. The change to the pooling of the District contribution is at this point something of a moot point, because plan costs have escalated to the point where an employee can no longer choose a package of benefits that is cheaper than the District contribution. The reason for pooling the funds is that it provides more flexibility to look at additional plan options at Omniparty.

The amended article that I know will make some faculty members unhappy is the Department Chair Provision. The existence of department chairs is an inherently divisive issue. Lawsuits have been filed in the past to try to stop the establishment of department chairs at community colleges in California. The fundamental underlying problem is the slippery slope that exists for department chairs between acting as a faculty member and acting as a supervisor.

There have been many problems at Sierra related to department chairs and the slippery slope. Because of the nature of the problems, faculty members come to SCFA for help, but we are unable to provide any help when the conflict is between faculty members. Furthermore, the department chairs and the deans often remain blissfully unaware that the problems exist, because the faculty members are unwilling to confront them.

We have bargained for a few significant changes to the Department Chair Provision to try to address these issues. We start by adding a paragraph that references the Government and Educational Code sections that limit the acceptable activities of department chairs.

We also have backed away partially from the recent change that made all part-time faculty eligible to vote for department chairs. Instead, we now require that part-time faculty achieve seniority status before becoming eligible to vote. This ensures that they will have at least the same amount of experience in a department as a new full-timer hired in the Fall who votes for a chair in the middle of the Spring semester.

A third change is the establishment of a conditional term limit for department chairs. A chair serving a consecutive term is ineligible to run for the position again if another eligible member of the department is willing to run. The goal is to prevent the position of department chair from becoming an entrenched entitlement. Please note that the incumbent department chair can go on being elected to the position in departments where all of the other full-time members want them to continue.

Another change is that elections will now be conducted by the Research Office instead of the AEA. Finally, department chairs will now be evaluated by members of their department in the second semester of every two-year term.

I know that these changes will upset some of the faculty – they were also not easily agreed to by some members of management. This was our best effort to try to deal with the multitude of issues that have been brought to us by our members.

I hope the work we have done meets with your approval.

In the next Negotiations News I will update the progress we have made in our analysis of the formula.