Volume 47, Number 1
Lobbying efforts will continue
By Lynette Nyaggah, CCA Vice President
Due process rights for part-time faculty will be increased if CCA’s co-sponsored bill, AB 852 by Assembly member Paul Fong (D-Mountain View) is passed and signed in 2012.
Many part-time leaders, in CCA and in other organizations, have worked long and hard on this concept, which is an improved version of rehire rights. CCA staffer and researcher, Alan Frey, has been putting together an analysis of rehire rights available at the local level. With this information, we plan to go to the legislators with a stronger case for our bill.
We were also able to stall AB 515 by Assembly member Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica), on offering credit classes in extension programs for full cost, thus creating a two-tier education system in community colleges. CCA President Ron Norton Reel wrote an argument against this bill which summarized our objections. It can be found on www.cca4me.org, along with the year end legislation matrix for all the bills on which we took positions.
Proposed legislation
Proposed legislation for 2012 includes a bill to tie administrator salaries to faculty salaries.
We anticipate that this legislation will encounter opposition from administrator groups but it is our initiative to rein in the outrageous administrator salaries which siphon away Proposition 98 funds from students and which feed into the adverse publicity on public employee salaries and pensions. The other issue which CCA supported this fall was the Oil Extraction Initiative, which would have infused community colleges with millions of dollars. It was endorsed by all community college constituencies, with the Student Senate working tirelessly on coordinating local students to collect signatures.
Chancellor support
Chancellor Jack Scott expressed unequivocal support for the initiative, saying that “this is a reasonable way of increasing community college funding – nearly every other state imposes an oil extraction fee.” It appears, however, that it did not qualify for the ballot this year.
As we follow the legislative and political issues this coming year, we will be calling on you for support by sending you alerts and asking you to send emails or call political leaders. We know we can count on you.