CCCFE Faculty News Notes July 17, 2013

July 17, 2013

Union Meeting in Review:

​The membership teaching during the summer met this afternoon for an informal meeting devoted largely to getting input from the members regarding priorities for the new academic year, and for negotiations. Among the suggestions and recommendations made were the following:

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Monthly meetings—we will try to accommodate this request, or at least make the meetings as close to monthly as feasible.

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Three meetings during the week for the monthly meetings—each covering the same material, to accommodate everyone’s schedule; this may not be feasible due to the meeting schedules and class schedules for the executive board members.

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Hold Meetings in different buildings, such as Math/Science 105, VT, etc.

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Provide sick leave bank: we had a bank for illness leave where members could donate sick leave hours/days to a colleague.

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Demand for accounting of accrued sick leave—regular sick leave accrual is supposed to be provided to faculty each year at the beginning of the academic year. This is grieve-able if you did not get an accounting of your accrued sick leave at the beginning of last year—or if you do not receive the sick leave balance at the beginning of this year..

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Send a letter to the CEO regarding the faculty’s desperate need for an increase in health care benefits.The leadership will meet with him one more time before developing the letter.

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Meet with the Special Trustee regarding the desperate need for an increase in health benefits

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Divisional Voting rights for counselors and librarians.

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Maintain a professional tone in the News Notes.

The questions regarding fringe benefits hinged on projected use of the 1.57% COLA. We will keep you up-dated on the COLA matters and projected use of the funds, should they materialize.

​It was also recommended that the faculty send a letter to Dr. Curry regarding the need for increasing the benefit package and using COLA funding to do so.

​It is interesting to note that in Northern California, Chabot-Las Positas CCD has a cafeteria plan—one which offers several options from which faculty members may choose the most beneficial to their needs. The Blue Cross PPO plan costs $4662.93/month for a family; the faculty member’s contribution is $2,309.38/month. The PPO’s are extremely costly; Blue Cross HMO monthly premium for a family is 2,544.86—with a co-pay of $30, and for this the faculty member pays $144/month; the Blue Cross HMO with a $10 co-pay is $2738.45, with the faculty member paying $252/month. This district also offers 2 Kaiser HMO plans for which the faculty member pays $144 or $36, depending on the amount of the co-pay of $5 or $20. And yes, these are rates for a family.

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Board Meeting in Review:

​The Board Meeting times have changed to begin a 4 p.m. for closed sessions and at 5 p.m. for open sessions. The reason for this change is to allow people who attend the meetings to get home at a reasonable hour. The only person who objected was the Student Trustee, who has a class at that time, both this summer and for the fall semester.

​The meeting went fairly quickly and routinely, since there were no speakers from the public, no public addressing the items on the board agenda, until Dr. LeBlanc introduced a guest from the audience who spoke at length about the alleged inappropriate conduct of an absent board member at public events.

​Michael Odanaka thanked the district for a very nice staff appreciation breakfast and for the especially nice raffled gifts—the best being the bicycles, television, and i-pod provided by Keenan & Associates.

​Though present, neither union representatives made reports, (classified nor faculty) and Jerome Evans was in class. The classified union submitted its contract reopeners for sunshining—the 30 day period prior to the start of negotiations--, and included a 5% + COLA increase in salary, and a 10% increase in health benefits, and an advantage for permanent or laid-off employees in applying for open positions.

​The District’s proposals for sunshine were predictably penurious: any increase to compensation based on District’s budget and state and federal funding (fair enough,) employee payment of life insurance premiums upon retirement of current employees, and no continuation of life insurance for those hired after 7-1-13. For classified, the District is willing to pay benefits for retirees with 20 years of full-time service. Members must apply for Medicare health benefits when they become eligible. This is hardly a surprise.

Negotiations Issues:

​Financial Considerations:

While the 1.57% COLA is in the state budget and we are fairly well assured of receiving that, the money will not be available until October.

We did not meet our enrollment target (FTES) for summer, and the fall enrollment does not look promising at this time,. This situation will impact our apportionment for the 2014-15 year, and could seriously jeopardize our precarious fiscal stability so essential for being prepared for the accreditation process. One thing that faculty can do to help the situation is to add students—as reasonable—given your subject area demands and the room space once the semester begins. Any downturn in our enrollment will affect our eligibility for growth funding—if the state provides growth funding, an uncertain provision at this time. As other colleges in the area restore the sections cut during the state’s fiscal crisis and restored by Prop 30 funds, their students are beginning to return to their home campuses, and our enrollment is far less robust than it was. It would seem that recruitment efforts should be directed at students who are still unable to get into the universities that have been impacted for some time due to cutbacks.

OPEBs (other post-employment benefits) refer to projected costs of employee benefits for retirees. It combines the actual cost of benefits for retirees from faculty, classified, and administrative employees with theprojected costs for all current employees, so each time the district hires new employees, the projection increases. When advised by the ACCJC that the high cost of the OPEBs would affect the district’s fiscal stability and would therefore affect eligibility for accreditation, the district began to set aside $250,000 per year to address the OPEB projected liability. All colleges are required to have a plan to meet the OPEB obligations.

​We will have some further information available in the next News Notes.

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