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Schools

Despite Tight Budgets, Community College District Approves Pay Raises

Community College District Board of Trustees approved a measure to review and potentially raise salaries for classified, professional and supervisory staff.

The San Mateo County Community College District Board of Trustees approved a measure that would review salaries and increases for classified, professional and supervisory staff despite the prevailing atmosphere of budget tightening.

The measure, approved on Aug. 24, is the result of a salary comparison of positions such as bookstore manager, director of library services and manager of compensation & benefits, with those of nearby districts. It intends to provide a basis for comparable salaries and increases.

“This group has never had a classification study,” said Kathy Blackwood, interim executive vice chancellor for the district. “Out of fairness, we really need to address this group.”

The district faculty, meanwhile, have their salaries reviewed in the process of the negotiations of their contracts, which generally occurs every two or three years. The current faculty contract expired June 30, 2009.

A tentative new faculty contract however, recently recommended by representatives of local union 1493 of the American Federation of Teachers, includes no salary adjustments or even cost of living adjustments, said Elizabeth Terzakis, Cañada Chapter co-chair of the AFT.

“We were told repeatedly that there is no money,” said Terzakis “It means faculty is taking a de facto pay cut. I don’t begrudge them a raise. They deserve it.”

She said that many of the positions, such as the director of the bookstore, work very hard to serve students. “What I do resent is being lied to.”

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But, Blackwood said the salary increases for some staff amount to only$54,000 in a budget of several million dollars.

Yet, this does not appease many faculty members.

“Faculty salaries are reviewed every time there’s a new contract,” said Margaret Hanzimanolis, former part-time faculty organizer for the AFT. “Are they raised? No.”

Hanzimanolis added that part-time faculty in the district are paid notably less than in neighboring districts and pointed out that about 134 part-time faculty had been let go, but that only 30 positions had been added back recently.

“If you are in a collective bargaining unit, then they seem to want to punish that,” said Terzakis of her impression of the action by the trustees. “It’s like— if you’re not in a union then you can have a raise, but if you are then you can’t.”

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But, Barbara Christiansen, director of community and government relations for the district, echoed Blackwood’s justifications.

“Classified supervisors have never had a review,” she said. “So it was an issue of equity.”

Blackwood would not comment on the ongoing faculty contract negotiations however, but she did specify that no Measure G parcel tax funds would be used to fund any salary increases resulting from the new reviews process.

Voters approved Measure G in June 2010, a $34 annual per parcel tax that raised about $6 million per year.

The money would be found somewhere in the budget though, said Blackwood, one way or another.

In the name of full disclosure, it should be added that this writer’s fiancé is a part-time College of San Mateo faculty instructor.

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