College Board OKs Pay Hikes for 17 on Staff

The Board of Trustees of the Glendale Community College District has raised the salaries of six administrators and 11 members of the district’s support staff to bring their pay closer to the Southern California average.

The trustees approved the raises, which will cost the district $29,806 annually, at a meeting Monday.

Donald Averill, administrative dean of human resources, said the increases were recommended by A-Plus, a Walnut-based educational consulting firm that conducted a comparative study of the college’s salaries. The study was requested last year by administrators aggrieved that some highly ranked instructors earned more than they did, Averill said.

Until the raises were authorized, Averill said, the top salary for an associate dean was about $68,000 a year. Deans are expected to work 40 hours or more a week, until “all the work is done,” he said. Meanwhile, some top instructors were earning as much as $70,000 but worked 35 hours a week.

Averill said he did not know how many instructors were paid more than administrators last year.

A-Plus examined salaries at 13 single-campus community college districts in Southern California and found that Glendale’s administrative salaries were significantly below the average, Averill said.

But Averill said the college could not afford to raise salaries as much as the study suggested. Instead, the trustees authorized increases of half of the amount suggested for each position. Six deans--who each earned about $68,000--each received 2.6% increases, Averill said.

The largest increases went to the college’s public information officer, whose salary was raised 7.7% to $49,188; the payroll supervisor, whose salary was raised 10.4% to $43,908, and the director of budget and finance, whose salary was raised 4.8% to $67,800.

Nine other mid-level managers were given raises of about $1,500 a year, Averill said.