Lawmakers are considering new proposals from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to allow community college districts flexibility to use more part-time instructors as part of the state's massive budget-cutting efforts.
The options, if adopted by districts, are meant to help campuses maintain a quality education program with less money, said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's Finance Department.
"(We want to) give community college districts greater flexibility to manage with fewer resources and try to weather this fiscal crisis as best they can," Palmer said.
Schwarzenegger has targeted community colleges for about $800 million in budget cuts as the state wrestles with a projected shortfall of $24.3 billion over this fiscal year and next.
The proposals are opposed by community college instructors and their largest union, the California Federation of Teachers, which recently helped defeat a Schwarzenegger-backed ballot measure – Proposition 1A – that would have extended newly imposed tax increases.
Fred Glass, CFT communications director, said the proposals would hurt community colleges and give students "the short end of the stick."
Statewide, the system serves 2.6 million students at 110 campuses in 72 districts.
"Nothing the governor says these days surprises us," Glass added. "He seems to be using this (fiscal crisis) as an opportunity to slash-and-burn education."
Specifically, Schwarzenegger is calling for a five-year suspension of portions of state education code that require 50 percent of a community college district's educational expenditures to be used for teacher salaries and which set a systemwide goal that 75 percent of instructional hours be taught by full-time faculty.
Community college districts could accept the two options or adopt others as part of a wider-ranging plan to cut costs, said Palmer, adding that the proposals are consistent with a similar push to give elementary, middle and high school districts more control over spending.
Schwarzenegger's proposals were unveiled last week in a meeting of the Legislature's joint budget conference committee, which is evaluating dozens of his budget-cutting recommendations in attempting to craft a compromise plan.
Jonathan Lightman, executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, a professional association, said that part-time instructors can be effective but that full-time faculty "do so much more," including participation in staff training, curriculum development and other key functions.
Students can be shortchanged, too, if instructors serving in multiple districts are not able to offer a full complement of office hours, Lightman said.
"Our objective is to ensure that full-time faculty remain the core and that these proposals under the guise of budgetary reform are not perceived as something that need to be passed wholesale," Lightman said.
Call Jim Sanders, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5538.
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