Community college employees receive wage increase

While local school districts lay off teachers and make other major budget cuts, employees at Butte-Glenn Community College District are about to see more money in their paychecks.

Faculty, administrators and classified staff recently received a notice outlining a 4.9 percent cost of living adjustment in the 2010-11 budget year.

Sharon Vogel, treasurer of the Butte College Educational Association that represents full-time faculty, said the increase is part of the contract with the college.

"It does meet the contract and it's not placing the school in any financial difficulty," Vogel said.

Faculty, including part-timers, administrators, classified managers and staff all get the same COLA increase based on what the full-time faculty association negotiates.

"It makes it a 'we're all in this together' culture. It's been a wonderful thing for the college over the years," said Lester Jauron, vice president of Planning and Information.

Jauron explained that the salary increase was deferred, because "we had been in declining enrollment for three years in a row."

When the recession hit, however, "our enrollments went up 14 percent one year and 11 percent the next," he said.

"We were 7.4 percent behind (the contract) before and we're 2.75 percent behind now," Jauron noted.

Vogel pointed out that Butte College is "still in the lower half of the state colleges" in terms of pay.

The COLA funding came from two primary sources: Increased revenue for full-time equivalent students; and "an additional $1 million in base revenue" from the state this year after it gave the Chico campus "center status."

Jauron said the state approval was in "recognition of it being an educational center."

Cuts

Jauron said the district has been conservative in its budget approach, and has avoided spending based on anticipated growth, and instead waiting until the money has been received.

"We'll be OK," he said. "We manage things very, very conservatively. In terms of the district budget, we're OK with the salary increase."

The conservative approach has meant reorganization and cuts. For example, 30 people took advantage of early retirement incentives and, except where absolutely necessary, were not replaced.

"That saved about $1.5 million," Jauron said.

The college has made management reductions and, last year, "re-engineered" categorical programs, cutting them by 15 to 50 percent, he said.

The biggest cuts were in "marginal programs," where only a few students enrolled each semester. With that, Jauron said, the school's mission is more focused on basic skills, career and technology and general education transfer courses.

"It helps us financially," he said, adding there has been "a migration from noncredit to credit full-time equivalent" students.

Also helping financially, last year, tuition increased from $20 per credit to $26. But it did not hurt enrollment. even with the increase, Jauron said California still has the lowest community college tuition in the country.

The good news for faculty and students is budget restraints were "done without any major layoffs," he said, adding the only layoffs at Butte College have been in situations where grant funding ran out.

A big concern for many administrators and faculty is the large number of students who are not transferring to the CSUs and UCs.

"It scares me (because) hundreds of kids who aren't transferring means lost income in the hundreds of millions of dollars," Jauron said, referring to the lower paying jobs available to people without college degrees.

Editor's Note: Reporter Lydia Harris is a part-time instructor at Butte College.