Chancellor's Update Sets Stage for Salary Rollbacks

The budget crisis in California may be old news, but the Los Rios Community College District is just beginning to bite the bullet. Adjunct faculty and students will bear the weight of most of the fiscal reductions facing the district.

“Los Rios serves as a template for national community college districts,” David Reese said, political science professor at Folsom Lake College, “We are the top managed, fiscally conservative district in the entire country. The last three years we’ve been able to delay the pain that other community colleges around that state have been suffering. They’ve already gone through this.”

The Chancellor of Los Rios sent an update last week to all faculty and staff, showing the net reductions to Los Rios, and how it will particularly affect them. The Governor’s budget reduces community college funding by $290 million with an additional $250-$500 million cut. This means that Los Rios will reduce faculty, classified and management positions, increase health care payments, implement salary rollbacks and make it even harder for students to get classes.

“When times are good we all benefit, when times are bad we all suffer,” Reese said. “The classified staff, the faculty, the staff, the administration – initially we were told there was a 1% cut to all our salaries. Now that the budget hasn’t passed, it means a 3% cut, and an increase in the cost of health insurance and lowered living allowance.”

Reese said that he couldn’t just measure his salary numbers but what he called “the take-home salary.”

“When you don’t get the raise you expected, that counts as a reduction. When you have to pay for things you didn’t use to have to pay for, counts as a reduction. That means we are facing a 10 to 12 percent pay cut for all of us here at the college. That, to me, is not a way to repair California economy,” Reese said.

But the majority of the burden will be felt by adjunct faculty and students.

According to the Chancellor’s update, none of the scenarios for handling the budget crisis will affect regular or tenure employees, but there will be less need to spend the money on adjunct faculty.

“These reductions will be felt by many valuable adjunct employees who, in some cases, have been with us for years,” wrote the Chancellor, in his update.

Los Rios employs 1,300 adjunct faculty right now. They are paid full parity, which means the same hour-for-hour classroom instruction rates, and they are also eligible for benefits, said Suzie Williams, the communication and research advisor for Los Rios.

“One of the reason we are so fiscally conservative, is because we are a good family,” Reese said. “We work well together. Laying off adjunct professors means we are saying goodbye to friends, family and people that are every bit as much of the college as we are.”

Williams said that students and faculty are all understanding and just appreciate that the district is communicating and doing the best they can, with the money they have.

“Overall the situation sucks,” Cody Pritchard said, Folsom Lake College student. “But it is just the way things are going these days and we have to learn to adapt to the changes and make it work. Eventually things will get better and the budget will start to go up. Hopefully.”

The Chancellor’s update included the “unfortunate reductions we will be forced to make in class offerings” which will impact students. However, the Chancellor indicated it could not find a solution providing greater protection for students.

“We cannot allow our over-cap enrollment to increase without jeopardizing our long-term financial health,” the update said.

With budget cuts across all college districts, the demand for community college is going up, without there being an ability to satisfy that demand.

“Because of the enrollment caps going on at the CSUS and UC systems, there is more of a demand for our classes, classes are all full and the quality of students are increasing because seats are much more valuable and everyone is trying to get in them,” Reese said. “But cutting sections and looking to balance budgets on the back of students is not right. For some reason America believes that the only way you can dig yourself out of an economic malaise is by cutting education.”


The Chancellor plans to meet with faculty and staff, the Board of Trustees and the Districtwide Budget Committee to start up additional conversation about the options Los Rios has in balancing their budget with reduced funding.

“When the pain gets bad enough, the people of California will speak loud and clear to say that is not what they wanted,” Reese said. “We are going to have a lot of pain, but that will make us address the festering problems that are lingering in our state and our budget.”