Copyright© 2000 by School Services of California, Inc.

July 7, 2000

State Auditor Releases Report on
Part-Time Faculty Compensation

It comes as no surprise to the California Community College system that part-time faculty are compensated less than full-time faculty for teaching activities. However, it seemed to be a revelation to the California State Auditor who was requested by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to conduct a study of the compensation practices among community colleges related to part-time faculty.

Assembly Member Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), who is the chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, requested that the State Auditor conduct the study. He was not satisfied with the progress the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) was making in regards to studying part-time compensation and employment practices as required by his legislation (AB 420).

Summary of the State Auditor's Report

The State Auditor's report included the following findings:

• Districts within the community college system have increasingly turned to part-time faculty to provide instruction to their students. Over the past five years, the percentage of credit teaching conducted by part-time faculty has grown from 40 percent to 47 percent. This trend to increasingly rely on part-time faculty also prevails in the teaching of core classes such as math, science, English, and history.
  
• Overall, part-time faculty earn lower wages and receive fewer benefits for teaching activities than full-time faculty with similar education and experience. Specifically, at the eight districts that were reviewed, if part-time faculty were to teach a full course load at their current pay, they would have received an average of $13,042 (or 31 percent) less in annual wages than full-time faculty for teaching activities.
  
• None of the eight districts enhance the pay rate of part-time faculty who have more education and experience as attractively as they do for their full-time instructors.
  
• By working in more than one district, some part-time faculty teach as many classes as full-time faculty but receive less for their efforts.
  
• The eight districts reviewed do not provide medical benefits to part-time faculty or provide such benefits with restrictions that are not imposed on full-time faculty. Also, it is more difficult for part-time instructors to obtain the retirement benefits provided to full-time faculty.
  
• The condition of unequal pay for part-time faculty prevails because districts have been able to attract significant numbers of part-time faculty who are willing to work for less pay than full-time faculty. Most districts defend their extensive use of part-timers and their lower rate of pay by citing their dependence on the State for the majority of their financial resources, stating that these funds are not sufficient to meet all their needs.

State Auditor Recommends Two Options

According to the Auditor's report, should the Legislature decide to address the issue of unequal pay of part-time faculty, it could consider one of the following two options:

• To maintain local control in establishing pay for teaching activities, the Legislature could establish a program that provides additional funding to those districts that establish equal pay scales for teaching activities for their part-time and full-time faculty. The objective of this option is to eliminate, for all part-time instructors, the existing pay differences for teaching activities that currently exist between part-time and full-time faculty. The Auditor estimates this option to cost about $144 million annually.
  
• Rather than eliminate the pay difference for all part-timers, the Legislature could opt to establish a program to remove the pay difference for only a portion of part-time teaching faculty based on workload. The objective of this approach would be to raise the level of pay of part-time faculty whose primary employment is college teaching while leaving at a lower level the pay of part-timers who generally only teach one or two classes a term and have regular employment in another occupation. The Auditor estimates the annual cost for this program would range from $18 million to $38 million.

Conclusion

The eight districts reviewed by State Auditor were Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, Los Rios, Sierra, South Orange County, San Francisco, West Valley-Mission and Yuba. The State Auditor's report includes a response by the Chancellor's Office and comments by the Auditor to Chancellor Nussbaum's response.

The State Auditor's report is available on the Web - http://www.bsa.ca.gov/bsa/

--Arnold Bray