By Dennis Frisch

     Since the last column, the two issues which have dominated discussions in Sacramento are accreditation and the Faculty Obligation Number (F.O.N.).   That is not to say that there are not other issues (especially the budget) that continue to be important.

          The Chancellor’s Office has formed an “Accreditation Task Group” with representatives from the constituent groups on the Consultation Council.  The community colleges have three faculty representatives in the task group from the State Academic Senate, FACCC, and CCA/CTA.  This group did a quick survey of college presidents to identify the most significant issues and problems.  This survey formed the basis for ten talking points which will be carried to meetings between representatives of the accrediting commission (ACCJC) and representatives from the task group.  One of the three faculty members of the task group will participate in these meetings.  The goal is to address the problems in a cooperative and collegial way and avoid direct confrontations.

     The Faculty Obligation Number (F.O.N.) has become an issue because the chancellor, with the strong urging of the League and ACCA (Association of Community College Administrators), has developed a recommendation to add a new definition to the criteria on which a district can apply to the Board of Governors for exemption from compliance with the F.O.N.  This new language would change the definition of “serious hardship” to exclude district general fund money used to backfill reductions to categorical program funding from the F.O.N. calculations.  Faculty groups have criticized the proposed language.  There is  an effort to rewrite the proposed language so that an exemption is for more narrowly defined criteria.  The proposed language will go to the Board of Governors for a first reading on November 2nd and 3rd.  Final action will occur at the January, 2010 meeting.

    Both the State and community college budgets are an ongoing concern because revenues continue to lag seriously behind the projections upon which the 2009-10 budget was based.  This means that  we  cannot rule out the  possibility of mid-year reductions.  Whether those reductions  will  be applied  to education  as well as all other programs, and whether community colleges will experience reductions within the education portion of the State budget, remains to be seen.  This makes for great uncertainty all around.  Compounding this uncertainty is the fact that in the final state budget community colleges came out relatively better than any other segment of higher education.  Certainly the reductions community colleges experienced, and continue to experience, are serious, but relative to the UC and CSU systems, community colleges fared better.

    FACCC and CCCI are working continuously to keep abreast of all these issues and will keep all faculty informed through their newsletters.

    FACCC has identified three areas for legislative initiatives for this year:  Career Technical Education, Part-time seniority/rehire rights, and the possibility of a legislative audit to determine the actual costs of accreditation at the individual district level.  FACCC will work with CTE organizations in developing legislation on Career Technical Education.  On part-time faculty seniority/rehire rights, FACCC hopes to work within a coalition that will support such legislation.  The accreditation audit will come out of the aforementioned task group, if that strategy is deemed useful.