The Board of Governors has amended Title V regulations to require a five-year plan from each community college district for making progress toward the 75 percent standard of total credit faculty workload hours, not including overload. The new section 51025 reads:

The following report outlines the statistical factors and fiscal requirements relevant to meeting the mandates contained in this Title V amendment. In an ideal world, both student enrollment and state funding would support full and rapid fulfillment of the mandate, an achievement that would be supported by all in the SRJC campus community. However, in the real world of diminished or flat enrollments and limited state support for California community colleges, a rapid realization of the 75% standard would result in a large and negative financial impact on both the college’s academic programs and the support services upon which students depend.

In this less than ideal world, SRJC must comply with the requirements of Title V, Section 51025 with a more gradual, but nevertheless determined, fulfillment of this mandate. The patterns described below for progress toward the 75% standard are derived from the mandate itself and will allow SRJC to sustain both the college’s standards for academic excellence and make incremental progress toward the goal. The background, statistical, and fiscal information substantiating this plan is presented in the following pages.

The Chancellor’s Office has requested that this five-year plan be submitted to the state by the end of November, 2000.

In 1988, Assembly Bill 1725 was signed into law by the Governor, which included a goal of increasing the number of hours taught by full-time faculty to 75 percent of total teaching hours. The relevant regulation under Title 5, including the new section cited above, is contained in Attachment A to this plan.

The law was written in a manner that required districts below the 75 percent ratio in total full-time faculty workload hours to utilize a portion of their program improvement funds received in 1989-90 and 1990-91 to employ more full-time faculty. Fall 1988 was chosen as the base year for purposes of quantifying each district’s progress toward the standard. Each year since then, the Chancellor has calculated the annual program improvement obligation for each district, and districts not fulfilling their obligation are subject to a financial penalty as outlined in the regulations.

The program improvement obligation, calculated by the Chancellor’s Office according to the regulations, must be met every year except in those years deemed by the Board of Governors to have inadequate growth and COLA funds. Since no COLA was allocated for four successive years from 1991-92 through 1994-95, the provision was waived for each of those years. Following those years, two successive years of adequate COLA and growth funding then followed, necessitating that the Chancellor’s program improvement obligation be met by each college.

In 1997-98, the full-time faculty regulations were amended to allow the inclusion of non-instructional faculty in the computation of the full-time and part-time faculty ratio. In years subsequent to 1997-98, the Chancellor’s Office has defined the program improvement obligation of each college under the regulation, and COLA and growth funding was provided by the state.

The following chart shows the historical data for Sonoma County Junior College District since the beginning of the program:

FTES

1989 ** ** 14,461

1990 ** ** 16,437

1991* 251.46 251.20 +0.26 16,969

1992* ** ** 17,134

1993* 251.96 244.80 +7.16 16,731

1994* 240.02 239.70 +0.32 16,887

1995 245.02 244.40 +0.62 16,946

1996 245.27 244.40 +0.87 18,288

1997 262.57 260.40 +2.17 18,128

1998 296.55 295.50 +1.05 18,305

1999 300.85 296.50 +4.35 18,377

2000 300.13 (est.) 293.50 +6.63 18,377 (est.)

* No COLA allocations in these years

**No data available

Because the new regulation contains certain terms and phrases that must be defined as part of the process of completing a five-year plan, this section is intended to provide a definitional context for the plan.

1. "Appropriate collegial consultation"

The new regulation does not identify any specific district process that must be used to fulfill the requirement that "appropriate collegial consultation and effective participation processes" be used in the development of the plan, although it contains the phrase "as required by this Division." Therefore, the college shall meet this requirement by following its policies and procedures on institutional governance as indicated below:

In addition, college policy (SRJC Policy and Procedures 2.5) states:

In keeping with college policy and procedures, therefore, the following process will be used in the development of the SRJC plan and future annual revisions:

October Draft developed and approved by Budget Advisory Committee

November Draft approved by IPC and transmitted to the President.

1. "On-going unrestricted funds"

Section 51025 specifies that "in those years where ongoing, unrestricted funds are provided beyond fully-funded COLA and growth to its cap, a community college district" shall apply funds toward reaching the 75 percent standard. The term "ongoing" implies "base funds" that are expected to continue from year to year, and shall be understood in that manner for the purposes of the SRJC plan. The term "unrestricted" is an accounting term, defined in the Budget and Accounting Manual (BAM) as "resources available for the general purposes of district operations and support of its educational program." Funds are categorized as restricted or unrestricted based upon whether or not the local board of trustees has the authority to control the use of the funds.

In this five-year plan, state funds will be categorized as follows:

Unrestricted Restricted

COLA x

Growth x

Partnership For Excellence x

All other funds x

Although some would argue that PFE funds should be included in the restricted column, the only current restrictions on these funds relate to their purpose as expressed in five broad goal areas. However, recent state discussions aimed at restricting the use of these funds may serve to change the PFE categorization.

2. "Fully funded COLA and growth to its cap"

This phrase has no meaning if it is understood to apply to every college whenever the state provides any funds for both COLA and growth. It only has meaning as it applies individually to each district. Therefore, it shall be understood that the college has "fully funded COLA and growth to its cap" whenever: (1) SRJC receives COLA funds that are deemed by the Board of Governors under 51025 (f) to be adequate, and are not reduced by the state during the course of the year; and (2) SRJC grows sufficiently during the year to attain the funded cap defined by the Chancellor for the year.

3. "Reasonable progress"

This term is necessarily contextual, since each district must take into account its growth rate and other local conditions, as well as how far the college is removed from the 75 percent standard. Section 51025 contains a standard for districts falling into several different ranges: those with less than 67 percent of total workload hours taught by full-time faculty, and those between 67 percent and the 75 percent standard. For purposes of the five-year plan, the term "reasonable progress" shall be numerically defined each year as part of the plan.

According to documentation derived from Chancellor’s Office reports, full-time percentages ranged from 83.1% to 39.5% across the 71 districts. SRJC ranked 25^th best out of 71 districts in 1998-99 and 26^th in 1999-00. The college reported a 64% full-time ratio in the fall of 1999 with 300.85 full-time faculty FTE and 170.11 part-time faculty FTE.

A calculation can be made to determine the full cost to the district of advancing from its current full-time ratio to the 75% standard:

• Assuming that all full-time FTE faculty added to the college replaced an equivalent number of part-time FTE faculty, the total number of faculty required to position SRJC exactly at the 75% standard would be 353.1 FTE, or an increase of 52 FTE faculty. The total cost of achieving the standard would be approximately $1,700,000 during the first year of full implementation, and approximately $2,500,000 after all step increases have been earned by the new faculty.
• At the other extreme, if it were assumed that no part-time faculty would be reduced while full-time faculty are added to achieve the standard, the net addition of full-time faculty would be 210 FTE, at an approximate cost of $14,700,000.

The actual cost of completely achieving the 75% standard lies somewhere in-between these extremes. Of course, the full cost of achieving the standard should also factor into account that the new hires continue to receive step and column increases over the years, which together with negotiated salary schedule increases, places a continuing demand on the institution’s resources at rates considerably above usual COLA allocations.

One reason the greater extreme of expenditures might occur is that the statute and regulations do not consider the relative level of compensation provided by an institution to its part-time faculty. Presumably, one of the major arguments in favor of AB 1725 back in 1988 was the disparity in compensation between full-time and part-time faculty. Since that time, SRJC has made considerable progress in improving the salary schedule and fringe benefits for part-time faculty. Currently, the lecture hourly salary schedule for SRJC adjunct faculty ranks approximately 4^th among the districts, and a benefit package now includes AB420 health insurance and domestic partner insurance. Some districts with a higher ratio of full-time faculty compensate their adjunct faculty at rates well below the rates at SRJC.

The enrollment pattern at SRJC has had a very significant impact upon the college’s fiscal capacity to expand the number of full-time faculty. The following chart compares the funded growth cap with actual growth over the past four years:

Funded Growth Cap Actual Growth

1997-98 1.23% -0.9%

1998-99 2.30% +1.0%

1999-00 4.26% +0.4%

2000-01 4.26% +0.0% (est.)

The "opportunity loss" from having failed to reach the state-funded growth cap over this four-year period exceeds $12,000,000 ($5,994,000 in base revenue for FY 2000-01).

Under the new regulations, SRJC is not required to make progress toward the 75% standard in those years where it fails to reach its funded growth cap. Therefore, during the four-year period shown above, progress would not have been required by the state.

From a fiscal point of view, the regulations do not require progress if a college does not receive funding to its growth cap. This is because COLA funding alone does not provide sufficient revenue to maintain a balanced General Fund budget. Allocating the full funding necessary to achieve the 75% standard at this time would decimate instructional program funding as well as other functional areas of the district. While categorical funding has grown significantly in recent years, many of those funds have been targeted toward purposes that do not allow for increases in faculty positions. Last year, the state allocated COLA at 1.41%, even though the Bay Area Consumer Price Index exceeded 4 percent.

One notable exception to the categorical strings in many of the state budget programs has been the Partnership For Excellence Program, which has provided significant funding increases to the system over the past two years and the current year. This fund was initiated with virtually no "strings" attached, but recent discussions suggest that the program may become a traditional categorical program where spending constraints will be imposed. The uncertainty surrounding the long-term viability of this program to sustain on-going commitments for faculty and staff, coupled with the possibility that a COLA factor will not be applied to it, has caused SRJC to move slowly in committing these funds for increases in full-time faculty.

Nevertheless, since the inception of the PFE program, a total of 15 positions have been budgeted from this funding source: 5 new full-time faculty positions have been added, along with 10 other support positions. In all cases, primary consideration has been given to making progress in the five goal areas expressed in the PFE program. Most of the additions to support staff are directly related to the instructional function, such as lab assistants and instructional technicians. These increases have come about during a no-growth period, and would not have been possible without the availability of this fund source.

Department of Finance data (refer to Attachments B and C) suggest that Sonoma County’s K-12 population will begin to decline in 2001-02 and continue a declining trend for much of the decade. However, high school graduates are projected to increase through 2002-03 before beginning a downward trend.

In recent years, the high school graduate cohort has been growing, yet enrollment at SRJC has been flat, and even slightly down in the credit hour portion of total FTES. There is strong evidence that the college’s lack of growth during the past four years can be attributed to several factors: the strong state of the regional economy, which has had a significant and measurable impact in lowering the number of students taking 12 or more units per semester (total headcount enrollment has continued to rise), as well as reducing the number of candidates eligible for instruction under the Welfare-to-Work program; the college’s structural limitations, such as convenient parking and classroom space available during peak periods; and the impact of the high regional cost of living (especially housing costs), which has increasingly created a barrier to growth in the county.

Unless the economy takes a protracted downturn, it is not likely that the college will experience significant growth over the next five years. If this projection holds true, the college is unlikely to achieve funding to its growth cap during the five-year period, thereby failing to trigger the regulation’s conditions in the near future that would require the college to make reasonable progress toward the 75% standard.

The college is engaged in an institution-wide effort to develop an Educational Plan as part of an integrated Master Plan. Timelines call for completion of the plan by the end of the college year. The scope of this plan includes a visioning process, compilation of data on student profiles, enrollment trends, external demographics, workforce trends, facilities use, educational programs and services, and an identification of education and training needs. An outline of the proposed plan is contained in Attachment D.

When the Educational Plan is complete, it will serve as the basis for making decisions on full-time faculty additions and vacancy replacements. The institutional participatory governance process will use the Educational Plan a component of the Integrated Master Plan, as the primary tool for defining areas of greatest need, and this will feed into the annual revisions made to the Full-time/Part-time Five Year Plan. Therefore, this plan on the full-time/part-time faculty ratio is a prelude to the development of the Educational Plan, and next year will be derived from the Integrated Master Plan.

Based upon current expectations of zero enrollment growth over the next five-year period, the following summary of targeted full-time faculty positions is proposed as the institutional goal:

FTES

2000 301 293.5 +7.5 18,377

2001 303 293.5 +9.5 18,377

2002 305 293.5 +11.5 18,377

2003 305 293.5 +11.5 18,377

2004 305 293.5 +11.5 18,377

Assumptions used to derive these target numbers are as follows:

1. There will be no enrollment growth or decline over the five-year period.
2. There will be minimal increases in the PFE categorical beyond possible COLA.
3. High school graduate declines beginning in 2003 will be offset by gains in older adults, thereby avoiding enrollment decline.

Regulation 51025 establishes the requirement to make reasonable progress toward the 75 percent standard whenever Santa Rosa Junior College’s state funding base increases beyond fully-funded COLA and growth to the state-funded cap. Therefore, the decision to add full-time faculty is fundamentally a derivative of sufficient budgetary resources, mostly growth revenue. Since SRJC is not projecting significant enrollment growth during the next five-year period, any progress made toward the 75% standard will be made as the institution’s Educational Master Plan identifies critical needs, subject to available budget resources.

The institution currently is projecting adequate fiscal resources to add 2 new full-time faculty positions during each of the next 2 years. This progress assumes normal COLA adjustments and no increase in Partnership For Excellence funds.

The institution will review its assumptions on an annual basis and adjust its plan accordingly, using the college participatory governance process.

11/03/00