College Instructors May Get Pay Hike Pact Would Affect 516 Part-Time Ccs Faculty

Community college instructors, who complained earlier this year that they earned poverty wages, could get lucrative pay raises under a new agreement reached with a teachers union.

Community Colleges of Spokane, which serves six Eastern Washington counties, has agreed to use the maximum money allowed by the Legislature to boost part-time faculty wages by 4.5 percent to 14 percent, officials said Tuesday.

The pay raises, which were hammered out this summer with the Association for Higher Education union, would be spread out over the next two academic years.

The deal, which requires approval of instructors next month, was hailed as a breakthrough by the union.

“The disparity (between instructors) was just too great,” said Richard Cox, association president and an electrical robotics instructor at Spokane Community College. “This will slowly close the gap.”

The deal would affect 516 part-time instructors at the three institutions in the district: Spokane Falls Community College, The Institute for Extended Learning and Spokane Community College. Together, the schools instruct 23,000 students.

Instructors had complained last spring that some part-time faculty earned less than $14,000 for nine months of instruction, though they taught nearly a full load of classes. That’s equal to the federal poverty level for a three-person family and far below the $35,000 annual contract for a full-time instructor.

Tay Conrad, community colleges vice president of business affairs, said the agreement will increase the district’s part-time faculty payroll by 10 percent, from $3.9 million to $4.3 million per year. The additional money comes from anticipated increases in tuition and the state general fund.

“Our salaries tended to be on the low side of the state,” said Conrad, adding that the district’s board of trustees will vote on the agreement in October. “Our goal was to get that up as much as we could.

“Part-time faculty have to meet the demand of students, whose numbers are not always predictable. If we don’t pay them (part-timers) fairly, they won’t be there to meet that demand.”

Cox said details of the agreement will be spelled out in faculty meetings after school resumes Sept. 15. He said he expects instructors to approve the deal.

Cox said the agreement is the first step in a 10-year process to increase part-timers’ salaries to 76 percent of full-time faculty. Under the agreement, an old sliding scale that paid teachers based on the number of hours in the classroom or laboratory, gradually will be replaced by a standard salary for all positions.

“A load is a load,” Cox said. “It (wages) will slowly close it to where we have one salary. We won’t differentiate between math, English, counselors, machinists and so on.”

, DataTimes