by Teri Bernstein

It’s been rumored that a top administrator is telling whoever will listen that our part-time faculty are overpaid and that they make “more money than any other part-time faculty in the State.”

NOT TRUE! I know our salary schedule looks good if you fixate on the highest steps, but it is nearly impossible to get there. A part-time faculty member teaching five-unit Accounting classes and teaching the maximum allowed every single year would take 69 years to reach the top of the salary schedule. Sixty nine years! Faculty teaching three-unit classes for twenty years are usually only at Step 6 or 7. The only faculty who make it to the maximum are retired full- time faculty, and we have only about a dozen of those out of our 800 part time faculty.

Here’s the cruel reality of our load factor 1.0 salary schedule: Average salary of full time employees at SMC is $58,000, according to the latest Fiscal Data Abstract (and this reflects a higher step level than part-time faculty ever achieve). Part-time faculty are limited to a 60% (9 units) maximum load, and their pay is 65% pro-rata. That means, at best, they are making $58,000 x 60% x 65%, or $22,620 ($49.23 per teaching hour, with $0.00 per hour for office hours, preparation, grading, freeway flying and meetings).

$22,620 per year is not overpaid.