BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 2155 (Ridley-Thomas) - Teachers: retirement: full time
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|Version: March 28, 2016 |Policy Vote: P.E. & R. 3 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Robert Ingenito |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: AB 2155 would require that collective bargaining
agreements or employment agreements that apply to adult
education instructors specify the courses for which those
members are adult education instructors.
Fiscal
Impact: This bill would result in annual state costs,
potentially in excess of $150,000 annually, related to (1)
increased state pension costs, and (2) a potential increase in
labor costs within the state's community college system.
Background: Districts and their faculty employees generally
bargain to define full-time employment and identify a specified
number of days or hours required to work full-time per school
year. However, for purposes of earning creditable service for
CalSTRS retirement benefits, there are minimum hours that
AB 2155 (Ridley-Thomas) Page 1 of
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employees must work to earn a year of creditable service. These
minimum standards vary depending on (1) whether the employee
teaches full-time or part-time, and (2) which courses the
employee teaches. Community college employers and employees
refer to credit and noncredit courses. However, provisions
governing CalSTRS do not make these two references, instead
referring to instruction in courses (i.e., credit) or in adult
education courses (i.e., noncredit).
Current law establishes three levels of funding for community
colleges. Credit courses are funded at the highest level and
noncredit (adult education) courses were funded at the lowest
level. In between sits a third level for Career Development and
College Preparation (CDCP) courses, which are also considered
noncredit courses. CDCP courses, however, are different from
traditional noncredit courses in that they are a series of
courses that lead to a certificate of completion that is
designed to improve employment prospects and increase transfer
opportunities to four-year institutions.
The 2015-16 state budget created funding parity between CDCP
courses and courses offered for credit. Offering CDCP courses in
the noncredit format possesses certain advantages; however, a
barrier to doing so is the requirement that faculty teaching
noncredit courses are required to provide at least 25
instructional hours per week while faculty teaching courses for
credit are required to provide 15 instructional hours per week.
Under this bill, a community college district and its employees
would have to bargain to decide which courses should be
specified as adult education courses and thus, the minimum
instructional hours a full-time instructor would have to work to
earn creditable service-either 525 instructional hours (15 hours
per week for 35 weeks) or 875 instructional hours (25 hours per
week for 35 weeks).
Proposed Law: This bill would do the following:
Require collective bargaining agreements or employment
agreements applying to any part-time instructors and to
AB 2155 (Ridley-Thomas) Page 2 of
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adult education instructors to do all of the following:
o Specify the number of hours of creditable service
that equal full time for part-time and adult education
instructors.
o For an agreement entered into, extended, renewed, or
amended on or after January 1, 2017, specify the courses
for which an instructor is subject to the 875
instructional hour minimum standard for adult education
courses, if applicable. Thus, creditable service for
instructors of courses not specified in the agreement
would be based on the 175 day or 1050 hour minimum
standard for full time and the 525 instruction hour
minimum standard for part time (i.e., if the agreement
specifies the course is adult education, the instructor
will have to perform a minimum of 25 instructional
hours/week but if the agreement does not specify the
course is adult education, the instructor will have to
perform a minimum of 15 instructional hours/week).
o Make specific reference to the section Education
Code Section 22138.5, defining the minimum standard for
full time for creditable service.
Staff
Comments: This bill would link the instructional hour
requirement of CDCP non-credit courses to standard "for credit"
courses. This action would lower the requirement for instructors
teaching specific non-credit courses on a part-time basis from
875 hours to 525 hours. Thus, the bill would make modifications
to the number of instructional hours required to earn
pensionable service credit for certain adult education courses;
consequently, it could potentially enhance teacher pension
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benefits.
Additionally, the bill could impact hiring with respect to
full-time faculty teaching noncredit courses. If current
full-time faculty teaching 25 hours per week respond to the bill
by teaching 15 hours per week (in other words, respond to the
bill by worker fewer hours such that they still receive a full
year of pension credit), a community college would incur costs
to hire additional instructors to backfill for 10 hours of each
position. The total cost of this impact is unknown, but could be
significant.
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