BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair 2015 - 2016 Regular Session AB 1690 (Medina) - Community colleges: part-time, temporary employees ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Version: March 14, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 5 - 2 | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Bill Summary: This bill requires community college districts to have collective bargaining agreements with part-time faculty that include specified conditions of employment. Fiscal Impact: New seniority lists: According to the Community College League of California, out of 72 community college districts 40 districts do not include seniority provisions in collective bargaining agreements with part-time faculty. Assuming a cost of $5,000 to $10,000 per district to establish a list, statewide reimbursable costs would be between $200,000 and $400,000. This estimate assumes that the estimated 32 remaining districts have an agreement in place that is based on seniority up to the 60 to 67 percent of a full-time equivalent load; has a regular evaluation process; and includes due process for termination. Once these existing AB 1690 (Medina) Page 1 of ? agreements expire, new agreements would have to be established containing the specified requirements in this bill. (Proposition 98) Maintenance of all lists: Initially only those districts that are not exempt of this bill's requirements will be eligible to claim for reimbursement for maintaining seniority lists. Once existing agreements that are eligible for exemption expire all districts will be required to maintain seniority lists in accordance with this bill. If each college campus used a partial position to track the data necessary to maintain the seniority list, reimbursable state mandate costs could exceed $2 million. (Proposition 98) Background: Existing law defines "faculty" as those employees of community college districts who are employed in academic positions that are not designated as supervisory or management, as specified. Faculty include, but are not limited to, instructors, librarians, counselors, community college health services professionals, handicapped student programs and services professionals, and extended opportunity programs and services professionals. (Education Code § 87003) Existing law also defines any person who is employed to teach for not more than 67% of the hours per week considered a full-time assignment to be a part-time, temporary employee. (EC § 87482.5 and § 87882) The Board of Governors (BOG) of the CCC has had a longstanding policy that at least 75 percent of the hours of credit instruction in the community colleges, as a system, should be taught by full-time instructors (commonly referred to as "75/25"). Existing law requires the BOG to adopt regulations regarding the percent of credit instruction taught by full-time faculty and authorizes CCC districts with less than 75 percent full-time instructors to apply a portion of their "program improvement" funds toward reaching a 75 percent goal. However, the state has stopped providing program improvement funds and the BOG has since required CCC districts to provide a portion of their growth funds to hiring more full-time faculty. (EC § 87482.6) AB 1690 (Medina) Page 2 of ? Proposed Law: This bill requires community college districts to have collective bargaining agreements with part-time faculty that include specified conditions of employment. Specifically, this bill requires collective bargaining agreements to comply with the following regarding part-time faculty: Community college districts, upon initial hire, and thereafter must evaluate the faculty member pursuant to existing law. A faculty member qualifies and is required to be placed on a seniority list if after six semesters, or three years, the faculty member has not received a less-than-satisfactory evaluation. A faculty member is required to be placed on a seniority list for each assignment at each college he or she holds during the seventh semester. After the sixth semester, each community college district is required to try to maintain the workload equivalent that the faculty member was assigned during the sixth semester. As new assignments become available, they are required to be offered in seniority order to those who have qualified to be placed on the list and have completed the associated assignment. In the event assignment reductions are necessary, they must be made first to those that have not yet qualified to be placed on the seniority list, and then in reverse seniority order. In cases of a class cancellation due to low enrollment, faculty members who are lower on the seniority list are required to be displaced. AB 1690 (Medina) Page 3 of ? Each new assignment successfully completed is required to be added to the seniority list. Procedures, such as those governing refusal or rejection of offered assignments, or breaks in service are required to be locally negotiated. If a faculty member qualifies for the seniority list but subsequently receives a less-than-satisfactory evaluation, the faculty member is required to be provided with a written plan of remediation with concrete suggestions for improvement. If the faculty member receives another unsatisfactory evaluation, he or she loses seniority rights and may be dismissed at the discretion of the district. Appeal and grievance rights and procedures are required to be locally negotiated. Provides that a community college district that has a collective bargaining agreement in place before January 1, 2017, that has required components is exempt from the bill's requirements upon the expiration of that agreement. The collective bargaining agreement must include faculty members based on seniority assignment based on seniority up to the range of 60 to 67 percent of a full-time equivalent load. It must also have a regular evaluation process, and due process for termination once a faculty member has qualified for the negotiated provisions. Related Legislation: AB 1010 (Medina, 2015), similar to this measure, would have required community college districts to have collective bargaining agreements with part-time faculty that include specified conditions of employment. This bill failed passage in the Senate Appropriations Committee. AB 1807 (Fong, 2010) proposed to require community college districts, through collective bargaining, to establish and AB 1690 (Medina) Page 4 of ? implement reemployment preference lists for part-time faculty. This measure was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Staff Comments: The requirement for each campus to have a seniority list is new and would likely be determined by the Commission on State Mandates to be a higher level of service and therefore reimbursable by the state. In addition, community college campus would be required to track part-time faculty information in order to comply with the minimum standards set forth in this bill required to be included in collective bargaining agreements. Regardless of whether colleges currently track this information, once a statutory requirement is put in place for a particular activity, all community college districts are eligible to submit claims for reimbursement. Data points that would be required to be tracked include: (1) part-time faculty that become eligible to be placed on a seniority list by date of hire and those that lose eligibility; (2) each new assignment successfully completed by the faculty member; and (3) the workload level of each part-time faculty in relation to the level the member was assigned during their sixth semester. These data would be necessary to ensure the correct match of faculty to courses, verify that the faculty member is maintaining the required workload, and track seniority by discipline. To the extent each college campus needed 0.25 of a position to track this information at a cost of about $21,000 including benefits, statewide costs would exceed $2 million. -- END --