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Volume 40, Issue 6. Today is .

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Volume 40, Issue 6
November 19, 2002

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Budget deficit trouble for faculty salaries
By Joseph Luchenta
For the Mesa Legend

With a predicted $400 million state budget deficit for the fiscal year 2003 and a projected $1 billion for 2004, it comes as not surprise that institutions funded by the state of Arizona are suffering massive cutbacks.

Even less surprising is that our very own Maricopa Community College District is one of the many institutions who will be forced to deal with the burden of decreased funding.

What is surprising, however, is that the cut backs being proposed are aimed at the very spine of our district, the employees.

With an expected 4 percent decrease ins tate funding during 2003, the district's Board of Governors is scurryng to put forth a new budget proposal that will keep our network of colleges afloat.

The plan currently being placed on the table is receiving much scrutiny from the faculty and appears to usurp the importance of the survival of some of our less moneyed employees, such as maintenance people and professional assistants.

With the average salary of such employees being little over $25,000 per year, the proposed salary freeze, which would be accompanied by a heavy increase in the cost of health benefits, may result in a loss of income as great as -8.7 percent annually.

Thus far, the District Governing Board who issued these harsh terms is unwilling to get together for discussion with the Faculty Senate; showing apathy towards upholding the long standing tradition of the meet and confer processs shared by the board and senate.

A shortcoming of legally mandated state funding for the Maricopa Community College District has magnified the negative affect of any budget cutbacks.

Employee Benefit Action Committee (EBAC) member and MCC economics professor Greg Pratt points out that, "By law the state of Arizona has to provide 60 percent of our district finances . . . last year they provided approximately 15 percent."

Pratt expressed his concern for living standards among all staff members, suggesting that, "If you're going to freeze everyone's salaries, the people who keep the college going, it would seem to me that before you freeze their salary you would look at other things . . . and our chancellor has a lot of things he likes to spend money on that are not salaries. Maybe those things could be reevaluated before decreasing salaries, particularly after the chancellor gave himself a 6 percent raise and gave his troops a 1 percent raise."

Senate Faculty President Barry Vaughan recognizes the inability of the district to continue paying employees what they deserve while still supporting the programs currently funded by the district, reassuring the fact that, "There is plenty of money in the budget to take care of all employees district wide."

Vaughan expressed his concern that the budget situation doesn't respect the true mission of the Maricopa Community College District: to provide instruction for the community. "From the faculty point of view, instruction is our purpose. None of us would be here if it weren't for the students, and the students don't come here because we have nice libraries. They don't come here because we have nice computer labs. They don't come here because they want a degree, they want instruction. The heart of the institution is students and faculty, everything else is corollary to that."

In order to distribute capital more appropriately, Vaughan suggests, "Look at those programs that are not mission ciritical, and if they are not mission ciritical then they need to either be suspended or eliminated altogether."

The Faculty Executive Council (FEC), made up of members from each of the district's faculty senates, has requested that an operation audient be conducted on programs both at the district level and throughout the district that are non instructional in nature.

Currently, the district office, which deals only in administration and provides no direct instruction for students, has the fourth largest budget in the entire district for 2002–03 fiscal years.

The FEC plans to meet in late November in hopes of organizing and promoting talks between faculty members and the dsitrcit Board of Governors concerning the proposed pay freeze and benefit cost increase issues.

Janice Reilly, former Faculty Seneate President and MCC counselor, cites that the proposed increase in the cost of benefits will be anywhere from a 16–34 percent increase from the previous year's cost.

Such an increase would take a staggering toll on the income of employees losing purchasing power to inflation and being faced with a possible pay freeze.

Reilly did provide some clarification to a somewhat hazy understanding of what options will be available under the new benefit plan mentioning that there are talks of "having one plan that all could get with the potential for employees to 'buy up'."

Reilly concurred with the sentiments of Greg Pratt and Barry Vaughan voicing the opinion that the faculty wants to "try to do whatever is in their power to do what's best for everyone, so that nobody has to pay to work here."

Turmoil is lilely to continue to surround the situation, at least until the Governing Board agrees to meet with faculty.

November's agenda includes both an EBAC and a FEC meeting that will focus on the issue, making progress in some direction inevitable.