Coach’s Corner – The State of the Union
Welcome back, friends and colleagues. I hope you had a restful summer break.
With all the cuts to the schedule, and the bad budget news looming, here’s some good news on the budget.
As I explained on Opening Day, based on the numbers presented, CCFT believes that Cuesta can balance its budget without a faculty salary cut and without freezing faculty step and column. That’s why CCFT’s position in negotiations has been to reject the District’s proposal to freeze step, column and longevity.
Furthermore, CCFT supports the Classified Union’s position that Cuesta can balance its budget without the layoff of permanent classified staff. We don’t know yet the extent to which the District will embrace the budget options presented by CCFT and CCCUE, and choose to protect permanent and contract employees who have long served Cuesta.
The CCFT Executive Board and Negotiations Team continue to seek the latest information on Cuesta’s budget. Things are changing on a daily basis, which makes it very challenging to keep the members accurately informed. I’m reluctant to publish too many specific budget numbers right now since the whole thing is a rapidly moving target. But that still leaves plenty to say on the budget as you’ll see below.
Accomplishments
Before I tell you more about our work on the budget, let me share a few of the things we’ve accomplished together:
- Constitution and Bylaws revision:
This was a major undertaking. Many thanks to those who toiled on it.
- Council of Reps empowered:
Meetings of the Council have been cordial and productive. Lots of important work got done there last year. Be sure to fill your seats on the Council. There’s lots more to do this year.
- Deepened and broadened member involvement:
I continue to be amazed at how many talented members have stepped up to the plate in all sorts of capacities to make this our union.
- The 2009-2010 Executive Board:
Please let me introduce the members of this year’s Executive Board. Several members were selected under the provisions of the new Constitution and Bylaws.
Peet Cocke – Vice President
Victor Krulikowski – Grievance Officer
Mark Tomes – Secretary / Treasurer
Marilyne Cleeves – Part-time Faculty Chair
Mike Holmes – Part-time Faculty, Council of Reps (New)
Tony Rector-Cavagnaro – Council of Reps (New)
Kevin Bontenbal – Council of Reps
Andrea Devitt – COPE Chair
Goals for this Academic Year
Obviously, surviving the District’s budget crisis is number one on my list, and I’ll get to that below. But we don’t want the fiscal meltdown to eclipse other important tasks facing CCFT.
- CCFT Budget:
Unfortunately, CCFT has its own budget crisis. This is rooted in our dues structure, our increasing payments to our state and national affiliates, and to declining dues income because of classes being cut here. As we communicated to our members last semester, our dues will have to be restructured to return us to fiscal solvency. That’s essential to providing legal protection for our members and to improving the wages, benefits, and working conditions of our members.
- Communications
We’ll continue to work on improving communication with our members. If you have any suggestions along this line, please let your Council Rep know. We’ll continue to publish our regular newsletter, negotiation updates, and messages from the prez. Budget updates will be provided as needed.
- Negotiations
As you know, the entire contract was up for re-negotiation this time around. Overall, the tone in negotiations has been positive and we’ve accomplished a lot. I would like to thank Mike Holmes, Mark Tomes, and Shannon Willson, the members of our negotiation team, for their tireless effort. They are the reason that we’re always prepared when we come to the table.
However, there are a few items remaining to be closed out. Let me speak to the important ones that illustrate our pro-active and problem-solving approach.
- We’re working now on closing out salary for 2008-2009. Let me tell you that talking money is tough. I keep saying that money does weird things to people. It sucks up a lot of time and undermines the collaboration we seek.
That’s why we’ve begun to develop a salary formula for 2009-2010 and will be prepared to present a comprehensive one at our next session. In our last session we informed the district of our intent on this issue. Colleges that received sizable raises in the last few years are the ones with a salary formula. I’m hopeful that we can get management to agree.
- Another goal is to establish some kind of process that will protect our senior part-time faculty in times of schedule crisis such as these. We have a group of people assembled and will begin work on this important issue quickly.
- Finally, CCFT and the district agreed to tentatively agree (sign off) on Article 7, Evaluations, with no changes. Given the looming budget issues, we were concerned that this Article would not get the attention it warranted. The district agreed to close Article 7 with the caveat that we would open it again next contract round, without costing either side a re-opener. We feel this puts CCFT in the best position to make substantive changes to Article 7.
CCFT Actions on the Budget Crisis
As some of you know, members of the negotiating team and the executive board have spent countless hours this summer struggling to meet the budget challenges.
Our first principle has been that the jobs and wages of our members must be protected to the greatest extent possible.
We’ve rejected the District’s argument that the only way to balance our budget is to cut faculty salaries and freeze step and column.
But it has not been enough to just say no to the District. Faculty are reasonable and our union is solution-oriented. So we dug into an analysis of the budget in a big way. We received invaluable help in this effort from our national affiliate, AFT. And, as always, from our CFT field rep Shannon Willson, and others too numerous to acknowledge.
CCFT has been in the budget debate from the beginning: at Board of Trustees meetings, at Planning and Budget meetings, at several ad-hoc meetings convened this summer at CCFT’s initiative, and of course at negotiations. I’m confident that management and the Board of Trustees welcome us as a co-equal player in the budget arena and recognize the constructive contributions the faculty can make through our union.
As you know, our hourly employees have taken a significant hit. And, behind each position is a face and story – I feel that. It may be painful to acknowledge, but this is part of the cost of preserving the jobs and wages of employees to whom Cuesta has a contractual commitment.
The layoff of so many hourly employees means that we’re going to have to change how we conduct our business, and the students we serve will have to adjust too.
Again, the monetary message from Sacramento is clear: offer fewer classes and provide fewer services. We can’t escape this. However, we can support each other in adapting to this new and difficult reality.
Budget Basics: Our FTES dilemma
The root of our budget problems is that the state has cut Cuesta’s FTES funding—our enrollment cap—to 9,177. If you haven’t heard, we just made 10,000 FTES (We borrowed 177 FTES from last summer to get there).
The gap between 9,177 and 10,000 is unfunded FTES: student enrollment that the State is not paying us for. Because the State chose to cut our enrollment cap, no amount of permanent employee salary reduction will provide a viable long-term solution to Cuesta’s budget deficit. Once again, the State has sought to balance the budget on the backs of PT faculty.
We also need to distinguish between the state deficit and what the district calls “local liabilities.” CCFT views these two budget problems separately for a number of reasons. One reason is so that we can identify district budgeting problems that have compounded our local liabilities and seek ways to prevent that in the future. In addition to being a budget problem, this is, of course, an accreditation issue as well.
The State deficit, on the other hand, is a legislative issue. That budget gap is approximately $1.9 million according to information that CCFT has been provided. As reported on Opening Day, we believe that this component of Cuesta’s budget deficit has been covered.
The local liabilities, on the other hand, totaled about $1.2 million and include Banner Maintenance Fee, Worker’s Compensation, Emergent Needs and Step/ Column / Longevity for all employees. This number has changed many times and will no doubt do so again before long.
On Opening Day Dr. Pelham spoke to the need to close a remaining $550K deficit in the current budget. Unfortunately, it was not specified as to whether this was part of the State deficit or local liabilities. CCFT will continue to stay on top of this discussion.
Budget numbers are fluid, pliable - squishy (the term I used Opening Day) - but CCFT feels confident that we can weather this budget storm as a community without a negative impact to salary, step, column, or longevity.
Closing
I want to emphasize that we have thus far been able to protect our members’ salaries and benefits with research, evidence, creative thinking, and by building on the union’s relationships with the various constituent groups on campus.
To date, CCFT has presented the District with a number of different ways to address Cuesta’s budget dilemma. We hope that Cuesta will have the courage and foresight to produce a budget that values and protects the dedicated employees of the college and their ability to serve our students.
Go Cougars!
Allison Merzon
Health and Physical Education Faculty Member
CCFT President
Cuesta College