Monterey Peninsula College faculty and students protest
An on-campus protest was held Monday by faculty at Monterey Peninsula College.
It came after negotiations between the teacher’s association and the college district broke down.
The Monterey Peninsula College Teacher’s Association says they’ve been without a contract for five years.
They say after multiple attempts to come to an agreement the district doesn’t take them seriously and Monday’s event was a way to show everyone that they are.
MPCTA says they want the college district to give them a new contract, one that’s consistent with the needs of teachers and students.
“We need the college board and the president to reorganize that, putting resource into the classroom is what will help put students first and will lead to student success,” said Alan Haffa, vice-president of the MPCTA faculty association.
For the last five years, the teacher’s association has been without a contract.
KION reached out to MPC president Walter Tribley who sent us a statement saying:
“We are working with the MPCTA to find agreeable language for a contract and have made many proposals. The terms of the last contract are in place until we reach an agreement on a new contract. We are, and have always been, committed to working with the MPCTA to get a contract. In fact, the District has offered to pay for facilitated negotiations which the MPCTA has declined to accept.”
“The idea that they have brought lots of different proposals was not the reality I experienced today and my colleagues experienced in mediation,” Haffa said.
The president also said the college is dealing with drastic funding cuts from the state.
And that until more students and sections are added, they’ll only be able to offer small raises.
The teachers association says MPC is still paying teachers much less than other colleges in the state.
“Faculty members who starts here, by the time they’ve worked here seventeen years is 71st out of 72 to the bottom,” Haffa said, “That’s really unacceptable. It makes it impossible for us to recruit and retain the faculty that our students deserve.”
With both sides at a stand still, the association says there’s hope.
“I’m hopeful that together with the support of our community, we will be able to achieve a fair contract and that the district will change its negotiating position,” Haffa said.
The MPCTA will continue their work through a fact-finding process.
Below are Tribley’s responses (In blue) to points the MPCTA brought up:
Mr. Fuentes, MPC has recovered, mostly, from drastic funding cuts from the state in the form of modified regulations that restrict how districts are able to claim funding for students that repeat enrollments in courses, as was very common at MPC for many, many years. We have responded to this challenge while transforming the college to serve even more students looking to build their futures. The college is on the right course and we are fiscally solvent. We continue to look for ways to increase compensation. Frankly, until we move the needle appreciable on productivity (#of students/section) we will continue to only be able to offer small raises. The new state funding formula will be a challenge for MPC to face and respond to in short order.
1.MPC Faculty have received no pay raise for several years. In fact, to help balance the budget, instructors accepted salary cuts. Any “increases” that administration claims were simply money owed to faculty by contract. MPCTA had to use mediation, twice, to compel the district to abide by their own contractual obligation. Moreover, MPC faculty pay will be 62nd out of 65 college districts funded by the number of students! Our pay is 16% behind the cost of living since 2000 and 15% below Hartnell. MPC faculty are being priced out of the community, which makes it difficult for the college to recruit and retain excellent faculty. In addition to dramatically higher costs to the district to cover retirement payments for faculty and all employees, MPC faculty have received raises. In addition, we have increased the amount we budget to cover the cost of a very good health benefit provided for the faculty and their families. The salary concession has been restored. MPC and Hartnell are challenging to compare. You would have to compare average class size, which is much smaller at MPC compared to Hartnell, the other provisions in MPC’s contract with faculty (such as “grading factors” and payments for extra preps) and the differences in our health benefits packages. MPC provides 95% coverage of medical claims in network and does not charge employees for their coverage, nor for their spouse/partner …nor for their children.
2. The District pretends that the state is responsible for our problems, but other colleges have the same funding model and manage to grow enrollment and pay faculty and staff competitively. Most of the enrollment loss from repeatability occurred in 2010-2012, but District administration failed to address critical enrollment challenges: Failed to upgrade our antiquated enrollment management system; failed to support faculty efforts to create new courses and programs; failed to create partnerships with CSUMB, local high schools, and businesses. And during this time period the college has reduced the number of full-time faculty, drastically reducing instructional payroll, yet, now, it plans to expand the administration. If the college has fewer students and faculty, why does it need 16 new administrators as planned by the District?
Other districts are in other parts of the state that have different needs and their educational programs will often not include so many small courses targeting personal enrichment (versus completion of a degree or certificate program).
3. The District is attempting sleight of hand. While it is true that the number of students at MPC has declined, much of that decline occurred before 2012. According to information presented to the college community by the President on May 17 , 2017, the May Revised Budget indicates an increased allocation of $800,000 for MPC next year. The State is also providing a 1.56% cost of living increase to address the increased costs of public employment retirement programs. Finally, MPC is on track to have 6,700 students during the 2016-2017 academic year, and will likely receive an additional $1.2 million for “restoring” these students. This is increased revenue that the College anticipates in the short term and is described in presentations that are readily available on the college website.
The District is not hiding enrollments nor funds. Our books are open. We publish the enrollment numbers and finances regularly. We are stabilizing near 6700 FTES (a mixture of credit, non-credit and enhanced non-credit enrollments). The added burden of increasing costs to cover employee retirement benefits is also contributing to the relative size of the raises we have put on the table this year (2% ongoing as of July 1 , 2017 and anything else we offered but was not accepted).
4. The District falsely claims that it has been deficit-spending annual for years and that this has been verified by CPAs in the annual audit.
Fact: a budget is a projection of revenues and expenses, but only the end of year actuals accurately reflects whether there is as surplus or deficit.
Fact: District approved a budget in 2012-2013 that projected a 2.2 Million dollar deficit; in Reality, the end of year actuals in 2013 showed a budget SURPLUS of $900,000.
Fact: District approved a budget in 2014-2015 that projected a 2.6 Million dollar deficit; in Reality, the end of year actuals showed a budget SURPLUS of 1.2 million.
Fact: District approved a budget in 2015-2016 that projected a 2 Million dollar deficit; in Reality, the end of year actuals showed a budget SURPLUS of 2 million.
Fact: The district’s annual audit only evaluates the year-end financial statements presented in the college’s annual report. That’s the report that repeatedly displays the actual surpluses that the school reports every year after claiming deficits in the budgeting process. Information presented to the public and to faculty is not from the audited financial statements. The district misrepresents the scope and purpose of annual audit. You can read where the audit report confirms this in the annual report here http://www.mpc.edu/home/showdocument?id=27197 .
Fact: MPC Faculty urged District to bring in the state sponsored FCMAT auditing team to perform a full operational audit to evaluate our financial practices and operational effectiveness. The district misrepresented facts to enable hiring a private consulting team paid for by the district and answering only to the district management, not to the state. This resulted in a management consulting project focused on administrative objectives, not a detailed analysis of the financial management of the district. The district’s decision cost MPC $200,000 instead of around $85,000 for a more objective analysis from FCMAT and did nothing more than to confirm district preconceptions. The decision of our participatory governance process was to get a full review of the college and not simply a verification of our fiscal procedures. The District receives an annual audit which it has passed every year.
5. In March 2017 , the District was placed on probation by our accrediting agency. MPCTA responded by recommending that both parties identify 1 or 2 priorities that could be addressed in negotiations before the end of the academic year; however, the District would not agree to reduce the number of proposals under consideration. The MPCTA Executive Board asked to meet with the President of the College to discuss the accreditation findings, but we received no reply. In negotiations, MPCTA offered compromises that would assist the college in meeting accreditation standards. However, it is important to note that while the budget deficit was a cause for the ACCJC sanctions, the solution is not prescribed by the accreditation agency. It is the District, alone, that has decided that faculty and staff must pay for the College’s fiscal mismanagement. The District has not mismanaged finances at MPC. In fact, we have balanced the budget and restored fiscal solvency to the college, reversing the trend of spending one-time funds to cover ongoing expenses. You can see a log of the proposals in negotiations on the District webpage. The District offered many opportunities for the MPCTA to agree to a contract that was more efficient. The District stands ready, as always, to address concerns raised by the MPCTA and to hear viable options for improving the college.
6. District falsely claims that faculty are not working hard enough and seeks to force faculty to assume a greater course load with less time to prepare and provide feedback to students. Faculty reassigned time for course preparation and for student evaluation and feedback is good for student success. Moreover, the District is pushing for those who work directly with students to carry a heavier workload at a time when our low salaries already make it hard to recruit and retain high quality faculty. Faculty are working hard. We are trying hard to find ways to increase salary without destabilizing the college’s fiscal security.
7. MPC administration claims a rise in “pension” cost without additional revenue to cover retirement; this claim is false and displays the district’s ongoing practice of shaping information to mislead. The district emphasizes cost increases at every turn and avoids mentioning revenue increases. The objective reality is that both costs and expenses go up over time, and in other healthy Community Colleges those districts recognize that costs go up for employees too. MPC on the other hand sets a target of capping employee costs significantly less than Community College system norms. We don’t think that regular working people at MPC should take pay cuts to enable the district to build an administration big enough for a school twice our size. Our books are open. You can see the revenue and the cost to the district. All K-14 public schools and many municipalities are struggling with the rising costs associated with the state retirement system for all our benefit-eligible employees (faculty).
8. MPC administration claims healthcare costs are a problem, but the facts are otherwise. In truth, healthcare costs at MPC are average for similar colleges, have been within budget for a decade, and actually went down for several years, a testament to our good health behavior. Further, MPC faculty have worked each year to curb healthcare costs by increasing our copayments, increasing our deductibles, and we have kept our healthcare costs right in line with the ten most similar districts. Moreover, the District regularly transfers money out of the Healthcare and Welfare Fund to pay for operating expenses, which is a shell game to create the illusion of a structural deficit. MPC’s low salaries make us non-competitive and eroding our health care plan will make it even harder to recruit and retain high quality instructors and staff.
Does the MPCTA want to go with a more-traditional plan in which they pay a share of the cost to cover themselves and their families, like other districts? No shell game. Just fund accounting to cover our own cost of claims. The District has rarely budgeted enough to cover the cost of claims. We are adding 2% peremployee to cover our estimated cost for next year.
9. MPC faculty have been without a contract for 4 years. Since negotiating our last contract in 2007, the only pay raises received have come from grievances to force the District to stand by contractually obligated raises designed to keep faculty pay in line with budget increases. All of this has left MPC faculty among the lowest paid faculty in the entire Community College system, while discretionary spending on things like executive travel, administrative personnel, legal fees, and consulting fees have all continued escalating freely. Rather than the current ultimatum issued by the District, which will result in more spending on an oversized administrative organizational structure, the District should commit to working with its faculty to:
· Create a plan to achieve competitive salaries for full and part-time faculty,
· Protect part-time faculty, who are paid by the hour, from uncompensated workload increases
· Ensure that compensation policies, especially for hourly part-time faculty facilitate student learning by recognizing workload factors such as large lecture courses, subjects that require extensive feedback intensive grading, along with providing time for course preparation and student meetings,
· Protect shared governance, so that decisions affecting student learning are made in collaboration with subject-area experts,
· Protect the retirements of counselors, librarians, coaches and other faculty who go above and beyond for our students and the college.
· Receive a full operational audit from the independent FCMAT team so we can fix the problems that are causing our district’s dysfunction. MPC faculty have been without a contract for 4 years. Since negotiating our last contract in 2007, MPC faculty salaries have increased by 4.08% (all of which resulted from grievances, which required the intervention of state mediators). During two years, MPC faculty agreed to take salary reductions to help the College deal with the decline in the number of students. However, our salaries are now near the bottom of statewide comparisons and it is time for the college to demonstrate the regard for faculty, which the Trustees are so eager to voice. Rather than the current ultimatum issued by the District, which will result in less earnings for more work by nearly all faculty, the District should commit to working with its faculty to:
We are working with the MPCTA to find agreeable language for a contract and have made many proposals. The terms of the last contract are in place until we reach an agreement on a new conctract. We are, and have always been, committed to working with the MPCTA to get a contract. In fact, the District has offered to pay for facilitated negotiations which the MPCTA has declined to accept.
10. MPC administration has tried to spin a slanderous tale of faculty unwillingness to negotiate, when the very opposite is what took place. After months, years really, of MPCTA attempts to negotiate in good faith, MPC administration wasted five hours of meeting time, before abruptly walking away from the table and making a regressive offer, an unfair labor practice. Their offer ignores the 22 accreditation areas that need attention, adheres only to the legal minimum on issues pertaining to part-time instructors, and continues to abuse faculty. MPCTA is working for accessibility for students. Our priorities are good for students, teaching, and learning, while administration seems intent only on serving themselves at our expense. In sum, ask yourself whether 22 more administrators or fairly-paid and happy instructors will make MPC a better place for students. The District has been a willing and creative partner in negotiations and has put some challenging, yet responsible changes forward for discussion. The MPCTA declared Impasse in the Fall of 2017.
