NORTHRIDGE : Bill to Let Professors Teach Free Planned

With classes at Cal State Northridge scheduled to begin in less than a week, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) said Monday said he will sponsor legislation to allow retired professors to teach for free without losing retirement benefits.

More than a dozen CSUN instructors who took early retirement this year have volunteered to return to classrooms at the cash-strapped campus for free for a semester or two, rather than strand students who need their courses to graduate.

But the state law authorizing their early retirement bars them from teaching in the state system without losing retirement benefits.

Katz said Monday he would try to add a rider to an Assembly budget bill to fix “this quirk in the law.”

“It seems somewhat outrageous to me . . . when people are being laid off and students’ educations are being postponed, that teachers are offering to teach for free and you can’t accommodate them,” he said.

He added that his staff has also been working with the university to find an administrative answer, perhaps by amending faculty contracts.

“We’re looking for the fastest solution possible,” he said.

The rider, which Katz described as the only legislative hope for a solution as the current legislative session nears its end, would most likely allow the professors to volunteer their services for only the first semester, he said. It would also be restricted to CSUN unless other universities in the Cal State system express interest.