Salary Negotiations Going to Arbitration

The teachers’ union and the administration of the Ventura County Community College District will take faculty contract negotiations to a legal arbitrator next month after failing to reach agreement on a new salary and benefit package for the district’s instructors.

The teachers want a cost-of-living salary increase plus a raise of 3% each year for the next three years, said Barbara Hoffman, president of the local American Federation of Teachers, the faculty union that has been negotiating with the district since June.

Among other demands, they have also asked for some type of benefit package for part-time faculty members, who now receive no benefits, and a salary rather than hourly pay, she said.

Administrators and district board members, however, maintain that the district is already strapped for cash and cannot meet the union’s demands without making deep cuts in classes or campus services. The district has seen its state funding cut in each of past three years.

“We’re having to scramble to find dollars,” said Jeff Marsee, district vice chancellor for administrative services. “We’re running close to the margin.”

Board member Pete Tafoya said while he can sympathize with the teachers’ demands, he cannot see where the district would come up with the money unless it cuts some faculty benefits, such as trimming health care benefits.

The district board, Hoffman said, “is clearly showing no motivation in settling this dispute.”

Officials in the California Community College Chancellor’s office say no state community college district offers complementary benefit packages to part-time faculty members, though a few districts do allow part-timers to buy into the district’s health plan if they choose. This is not available at the county district.

Also, there is no district that pays part-time faculty a salary rather than hourly pay, and an offer to do so “would be considered a fairly radical proposal,” said Nancy Ackley, a spokeswoman for the chancellor’s office.