By Teri Bernstein

The recent state audit on community colleges' spending practices has focused media and lawmakers' attention on the "50 Percent Law."  The Oct. 12 report was subtitled "Poor Oversight by the Chancellor's Office Allows Districts to Incorrectly Report Their Level of Spending on Instructor Salaries."

The audit revealed that six out of 10 community college districts were violating the law, which requires districts to spend 50 percent of their educational expenses on compensation for classroom instructors and aides.  Underspending in these six districts alone totaled $10 million for the 1998-99 fiscal year; the four districts not in violation also made reporting errors.

The grapevine tells us that administrators around the state are now scrambling to confirm whether they are indeed in compliance, as the audit focused attention on several practices that have never been challenged by the Chancellor's Office.  Rather than examining increases in administrative spending or over reliance on under-paid part time faculty, some districts have attempted to comply with the 50% law by cutting faculty reassigned time and other non-teaching faculty assignments.

The 50 percent law Consultation Council Task Force is attempting to address related issues, which had been tabled in the recent Education Code review.  After FACCC and other community college advocates convinced the Joint Legislative Audit Committee in April to request a state audit, Chancellor Tom Nussbaum convened the 50 Percent Law Task Force in June. The task force undertook the complex task of examining the law itself (Education Code 84362),  the  related  regulations (59200-59216),the Budget and Accounting Manual (BAM), state auditing standards vs. local practices, and enforcement and accountability issues. Task force members first explored the idea of defining "salaries of instructors" as salaries of all faculty--teachers, student support faculty and faculty on any type of reassignment.  This change would require a change to the Education Code itself.  This concept was supported by administrative groups, but not by any faculty groups.  The primary effect of this definition would have been to eliminate the 50 percent law minimum for teaching faculty, and would not have established any protection for student support faculty.  It would have pit faculty members against each other, competing for the same pool of money.  Moreover, attempts to ascertain a fair percentage relating to student-support faculty requirements made it clear that further study would be needed.

FACCC Executive Director Jonathan Lightman and Theresa Aldredge of Cosumnes River College met with the task force to help clarify that teaching faculty are the focus of the 50 percent law, but that funding protection for student-support faculty is a very important issue that also deserves attention from the Chancellor's Office.  The task force supports continuing this discussion in another committee, after counselors and student service groups, on a statewide level, meet with FACCC leaders  to develop policy, positions and possible legislation to present to the Consultation Council.

The task force also considered the risks to making any other changes to the Education Code, since those changes would have to be debated in the Legislature.  Faculty members don't want to lose the protections of this law, and the system does not want to risk public disagreements at a time when we all want more funding.  Therefore, the task force will not recommend any changes to the Education Code.

The task force members agree that we need several changes in the regulations, which are supposed to explain and support the statute.  The audit suggested several changes that would have the effect of requiring that more money be spent on instruction.  In addition, several clarifications were suggested that would preclude interpretations that have had the effect in the past of lowering the amount spent on instruction.  The task force will probably recommend implementation of several of these suggestions.

The chancellor has proposed one regulation change that would have the effect of lowering the amount spent on instruction, by allowing non-instructional reassigned time to be designated as "instructional" if done with the permission of the Senate.  This suggestion will probably be vigorously   discussed with  constituency  groups  as  the short-term advantages (fewer threats to existing reassigned time) are at odds with the long-term risks (if millions of dollars in administrative reassignments cut into instructional funding).

Also still under discussion are proposals to require local public   hearings regarding 50 percent law compliance calculations, and to increase the audit requirements and the Chancellor's Office enforcement policies.  The audit's central issue was the Chancellor's Office lack of accountability.  The community colleges can ill-afford a lack of accountability in an era when we seek more funding, so the task force must seek effective changes in this area. The task force hopes to complete its recommendations by the end of the year.

For more info, see www.smcfa.org/50/50_percent.html, and www.cccco.edu/cccco/consult/Task_Forces/fiftypercenttf.doc.