Countywide : College Instructors to Get 8.6% Pay Hike

Teachers in the Coast Community College District will get an 8.6% salary increase under a contract ratified this week by trustees.

The bulk of the pay hike--7%--will be retroactive to the beginning of the fall semester for about 630 full-time community college instructors at Coastline in Fountain Valley, Golden West in Huntington Beach and Orange Coast in Costa Mesa, district officials said Thursday.

The remainder will appear on teacher paychecks in January under the pact approved 4 to 0 by trustees Wednesday night. The salary agreement is expected to cost the district an extra $3.3 million for the 1990-91 academic year.

The increase, the largest in recent memory, is aimed at bringing teacher salaries in line with other community colleges throughout the state, said Gene Farrell, the district’s vice chancellor for business affairs.

“We used to be in the top 25% of teacher salaries,” Farrell said. “In the past 10 years, we slipped to the bottom 25%. The goal was to try to get us back up in the top third. . . .” Faculty association President David L. Jarman, however, said teacher salaries must be higher still to catch up with comparable Southern California community college districts.

“The faculty are happy, and I’m glad they’re happy,” said Jarman, a computer programming and technology instructor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. “But I’m not happy yet. . . . We calculated that it would take a 29% increase over three years to put us in the middle range of 10 benchmark districts.”

Jarman said the district has had trouble hiring new faculty because of the low pay. A high school teacher who recently came to Orange Coast took nearly a $6,000 pay cut when she switched jobs, he noted.

Under the new pact, full-time instructor salaries range from $24,444 to $56,434 for the top teachers with doctorates. With January’s hike, salaries will range from $24,811 to $57,281.

Trustees signed a two-year contract, but it provides for additional salary negotiations in the second year. Jarman said new talks are expected to begin in March.

The district has about 60,000 students on the three campuses.