Dear CCSF Colleagues and Stakeholders:
The buck stops here. I take full responsibility for the controversy that has occurred since the Board’s approval of the FY 2019-2020 budget on August 22, 2019.
Attached is an official statement we released to the press and college stakeholders on Wednesday, September 11, prior to the protest rally last Thursday sponsored by our friends of AFT 2121. Unfortunately, the Chronicle chose to cover the rally, but did not include the information we provided.
The fact of the matter is that the administrator salaries have NOT yet been approved. I am required by Board Policy 1.26 to report in an open session of the Board the proposed salaries for administrators:
BP 1.26. Upon any recommended change in appointment, title, or increase in compensation or benefits of any administrator, the Chancellor must present to the Board of Trustees for approval (1) the basis for the appointment, title or increase in salary or benefits, not including scheduled sequential steps and/or benefits; (2) the percentage increase in salary or benefits; and (3) how any change is consistent with the policies, protocols and salary schedule adopted by the District.
It is not plausible that I would willfully ask the Board to violate its own policy. I have yet to bring the recommended compensation for each administrator for approval to the Board, as I will do at an open Board Budget Committee meeting on September 19th and at the next regular Board meeting on Sept 26th.
So this is a two-step process. The first step was to authorize the budget for the proposed salary schedules for all employees as fundable in the required FY2020 budget adoption. This was approved by the Board and was there for all to see. The second step is to bring to public session the approval of my recommended compensation for all of the 57 administrators, per BP 1.26. This will occur as described above. When one sees, as you will, the spreadsheet of the actual salaries for the top 100 highly paid employees at CCSF, one will see that: 1) the press accounts are simply incorrect; 2) the salaries for all employees are reasonable per our policy. At Thursday’s Board Budget Committee meeting I will present personally the actual salaries of all 57 administrators that will demonstrate this.
So, please, wait for the completion of the process. I fully understand that there are those who do not support the salary proposals. The Board has the full authority to review, amend or even rescind the approved administrative salary schedule. The Board will act as it sees fit in the full sunlight.
Given the transparency of this process, why the controversy? This is where I come in to take responsibility. I am so close to the Board agendas and polices that I assumed that by now all were aware of Board Policy 1.26 and the policies governing this and all Board actions. This was, however, an incorrect assumption on my part. I should have made this process clear from the outset. Doing so may have caused those who opposed the Board’s approval of the salary schedule to wait for the completion of the entire process.
No excuses from me. I do not ask for your support for my salary recommendations. But I do ask for your careful and fair-minded reading of the proposal on administrator salaries.
And I do ask for a gentle and charitable approach as we move forward toward a sustainable future for CCSF. It is, for example, absolutely true that the funding for the salary increases for all employees this year will total nearly $5.7M, of which the administrators’ portion is $580,000, or 10%. It is also true that this $5.7M could all be put to restore the classes that have been cut from the schedule.
But my overall budget recommendation to the Board is that competitive salaries for faculty, staff and administrators are absolutely essential for retention and recruitment of the best people, especially in a city with the highest cost of living in the United States. I deem recruitment and retention of the best people as the highest priority for creating our sustainable future. You may respectfully disagree with my recommendation to the Board but the key word is ‘respectfully’. This implies a civil conversation, a dialogue in which we negotiate and manage our differences.
It is fair for anyone to make a case that the restoration of the class cuts must come before any salary increases. The class cuts have indeed been painful and can’t be softened by the fiduciary requirement of the Board to balance the budget. But the case for this priority must be made in the open in a fair-minded discussion alongside other long standing and pressing spending priorities, such as the need to renovate our facilities, the need to overhaul our IT system, the need to upgrade our safety, security and emergency preparedness, the need to hire a diverse faculty and staff, the need to invest in enrollment growth and marketing of Free City and the need to fund such other student support items such as transportation passes, housing and expanded child care These and other items will cost many millions and this cost must be borne sooner or later.
I am hopeful and confident that we will continue to move forward, haltingly to be sure, toward a sustainable environment in which such spending priorities can be decided together by consensus. We’ve made much progress in the past couple of years. We will take the salary schedule issue as an opportunity for more progress.
I look forward to seeing many of you at upcoming meetings. And don’t forget, “Philz Coffee”. Send me an email with that subject line and we will meet one on one for a chat, with the coffee on me. I’ve had many of these coffees already this year and the chats have been heartening. I come to work each day in the joyful knowledge that you are the most awesome faculty, staff, students and administrators ever. And for this I am deeply grateful.
In hope and heart,
Dr. Mark Rocha, Chancellor
City College of San Francisco