Cutting faculty pay is not the answer

For those of you who haven't been paying attention to what's been going on in Austin lately, here's the gist of it: college funding is being cut and someone is going to have to pick up the slack. This isn't necessarily a new issue.

Dr. Wright Lassiter, chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD), addressed this issue last semester with student journalists, saying that the state has called upon DCCCD and other college districts to reduce their budgets significantly.  

Students have already felt the effects of the cuts with higher tuition costs this semester.

This, however, doesn't seem to be enough to make up for the budget shortfall that Dallas colleges are dealing with. The cuts that DCCCD will have to make will likely affect the faculty's pay and benefits.

A couple of weeks ago, the Chronicle reported on DCCCD faculty frustrations with the budget cuts.

The anger over the situation is understandable. You can't cut a budget without having to give up something to make up for the loss of funding. Someone naturally is going to get upset.

But this time, faculty members may be justified in their concerns.

The DCCCD Faculty Association hired Ulibarri-Mason Global HR for the Feb. 25 meeting to present data on the current budget and to propose ideas to minimize "the impact of state mandated budget cuts on accessibility to higher education, and the quality of programs and services to students".

In the report released during the meeting, the numbers and statistics unsettlingly don't add up.

Dallas was compared side-by-side with nine other major community college districts in Texas including Houston, Austin, and Alamo.

At first glance, things look good. DCCCD is in charge of seven colleges and 11 campuses. It also has the second-lowest tuition rate among the districts studied.

The first red flag is raised when looking at the employee head count.

Dallas by far has the largest number of administrative employees (498). With 765 full-time faculty members, that's just one and half faculty members per administrator.

Richland alone has only 40 more faculty members than administrators.

In a city like Houston, with nearly 1,000,000 more people and 14 more community college campuses than Dallas, there are only 137 administrators. With 829 full-time faculty members, that's about six faculty members per administrator.

Why does Dallas have so many administrators? Doesn't it make sense to have several faculty members for one administrator?

Dallas also has the highest number of professional support staff (PSS) among the districts studied.

There are over two PSS members per faculty member in DCCCD compared with just over one PSS member per faculty member in other districts.

Combined, DCCCD has about three PSS and administrators per faculty member, more than any of the nine districts.

Another concern is how much the faculty is being paid. DCCCD actually ranks high in average faculty pay, placing second among the districts.

This makes sense considering that 34 percent of its employees have more than 25 years of teaching experience, many with doctorates.

The worry is how much the district's faculty members are being paid compared to other local school districts.

College employees with master's and doctorate degrees are being paid less than employees with the same education level at primary and secondary education schools.

 Not to demean employees in other public school districts, but shouldn't college instructors and employees be paid more?

The DCCCD faculty has not seen a salary increase since the 2008-2009 fiscal year, which was a 5 percent increase.

Suggestions to decrease faculty pay now with schools seeing record enrollment rates is irresponsible.

The solution, whatever it is, will not be easy.

The data suggest that the fix that would save the most money is a reconstruction of the administrative staff.

With nearly five times more savings than a faculty pay cut, this seems more than reasonable.

My personal solution would be to go straight to the source. The legislature in Austin holds the key to our schools' financial well-being. Texas lawmakers needs to be convinced to not cut funding from education.

A better education leads to a more skilled workforce, which leads to more money for the state. If the legislature would agree on the importance of the state's funding for education, then we wouldn't have to deal with the budget crisis.

I know this solution would be very difficult to do, considering funding would have to be cut from somewhere else. But I do think it is worth a shot.

It would be better than to have well-deserving faculty members having to suffer the consequences of a tightened budget plan.