By  Teri Bernstein  

The 50% law task force was convened by Thomas Nussbaum, Chancellor, in response the audit initiated last Spring by the Bureau of State Auditors. This Task Force is part of the  Consultation process, which is "shared governance" at the state level--in other words, a little heavy on the administration side.  It has been pretty clear from these meetings that administrators hold some misperceptions about the law--they view it as "archaic," "a holdover from K-12," "anti-shared governance" and "not what we need for student success."  There is little acceptance for the faculty view that it represents the minimum that districts must spend on instruction.

Administrators who complain about the law are really just saying they don't like having to be fiscally accountable!  They don't want to have to spend 50 cents out of every dollar granted to Districts by the Legislature based on students enrolled in classes.  Administrators want to spend it any way they want.  Remember, one of the main objectives of this law is to keep a lid on administrative expenses.  Administrators particularly resent any "faculty" member included on the administrative side of the calculation.

Let's face it, student support and curriculum support are extremely important.  Student support and curriculum support are in non-instructional areas (counselors, librarians, those on reassigned time), which, if properly recorded, are on the non-instructional side of the 50% law computation .  Faculty know these areas best; they are "in the trenches"; they provide the most cost-effective benefits to students in these areas.  AB1725 also supported faculty working on the non-instructional side, as part of shared governance.

When administrators say that AB 1725  is in conflict with shared governance, they are really saying that AB 1725 puts more faculty on "their" side--the administrative side--of the 50% law, and they don't like it.  It is entirely likely that the intent of the law was to REPLACE administrative costs with faculty  who  were  better  able  to provide expertise in certain areas.  Non-instructional faculty costs have to be funded from somewhere.  Either they are going to "eat into" administrative costs--like they do now, or they are going to "eat into" instructional faculty costs--which is what administrators would like.

Adminstrators are (or hire) expert spin doctors, who recognize that many faculty feel that "inclusive" sounds "good" and "separate" connotes "bad."  They make counselors feel like they are being "excluded." But in fact, counselors and faculty as a whole are doing better with non-instructional faculty "eating in" to administrative costs.  There, growth in instructional faculty can be balanced by growth in non-instructional faculty--instead of an expanding administration.
On the task force, however, it is an uphill battle to make the changes to 1) keep this law intact and 2) undo some of the damage that years of administration-influenced regulations and lack of enforcement has caused.  The Auditor's report gives us some ammunition, but we as faculty have to stick together to make sure that Administrative spin doctoring doesn't drive us apart.

The charge that the 50% law is "anti-shared governance" can easily be fixed with a change to the BAM allowing a certain number of FTE (ten?) to be counted as instructional for 50% law purposes, or by a provision that would require Academic Senate or Faculty Union-approved reassignments under the Senate governance tasks or faculty-initiated curriculum development. Faculty-elected department chairs might also count.  The 50% law task force can make such a recommendation, and include additional changes to the BAM and an expansion of the required annual audit procedures.

The task force work is not done. It is certain that the state audit report will influence the task force report, and the Chancellor's recommendations to the Board of Governors and the Legislature. New legislation may be introduced as well.  It is important that faculty understand the importance of preserving this law in the interesting months ahead.