LACCD profs rank high in pay

Karina Gonzalez

A salary review published in the National Education Association’s newsletter, Higher Education Advocate ranks a full-time teacher’s salary at Pierce College to be $69,200 annually.

This means that Pierce and the L.A. Community College District (LACCD), rank in the top half of the list that was published in the Advocate’s 2007 review, which compared the salaries of full-timers and part-timers in all the colleges in California.

“Salary-wise, the LACCD salaries are in the top half of the list of community colleges in California. But if you see benefits-wise, then we rank amongst the top three,” said William de Rubertis, chapter president of the Pierce Faculty Guild. “For the total compensation-wise, we are in the top 25 percent of the state,” he said.

The total compensation, de Rubertis explained, is the amount teachers are paid when salary and benefits are combined.

The salaries of the adjuncts (or part-timers) and the new teachers are very competitive compared to the rest of the community college districts in not only California, but nationwide.

The senior teachers’ salaries are the least competitive, but compared to the state and in fact the rest of the country they are still extremely high.

There is a significant amount of difference between the salary of the new hires and the senior teachers who have at least 18 to 20 years of experience in this profession.

According to de Rubertis, the annual salary of a starting teacher is $45,200, whereas the senior staff earns about $97,340 annually.

The senior teachers get almost double of what the new hires are paid because they usually have a higher degree and are a lot more experience in this field.

“This is because someone who is starting off has minimum preparation and does not have the same qualities or qualifications as the senior staff,” said de Rubertis.

As published in the Advocate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, holders of a doctorate degree who are 25 years old and who work full time earn an average of $74,977, a 13 percent advantage over college faculty.

California was one of the 11 states where the average community college faculty salaries kept pace with the state household income.

The full-time teachers usually take time off during the summer and more of the adjuncts teach because this gives them a chance to earn a little bit more money than they would make by teaching only during the regular semester.

“If at any point Pierce’s salary looks a lot lower in the list, it is because we have hired a lot of new faculty members and they are not paid as much as the senior staff,” said Kathy Daruty, a professor in the business administration department.

While the Advocate notes that teachers’ salaries not only in California but nationwide have been on a decline, the LACCD teachers’ salaries seem to be on the rise.

Daruty said the benefits they receive now have been largely improved ever since Carl Friedlander became president of the L.A. College Faculty Guild, Local 1521. The guild represents the entire LACCD in the American Federation of Teachers.

Recently, it has been noted that California State University salaries are notoriously low compared to the statewide community college salaries.

On May 7, 2007 the California Faculty Association announced that 97 percent of its members had voted to ratify the contract reached in April between the CFA and the CSU system.

The CFA board of trustees will officially vote on the contract at the meeting that’s taking place today.

“I’m not surprised that the CSU salaries are lower than the community colleges because the teachers there are not expected to teach as much as we are at LACCD,” said Nicholas Habib, a professor of philosophy at Pierce.

According to the salary schedules published by LACCD and CSU Web sites, a part time teacher’s salary at CSUN is less than a part time teacher’s salary at Pierce College.

According to Habib however, the CSU salaries are expected to go up in the next five years if there are enough votes today.

All but three of the highest paying community college salaries are located in California, where our highest average faculty salary is more than $100,000 per annum. Saddleback College comes in second place on the list, with their average salary being more than $83,000.

According to the Advocate, the lowest paying community college salary is less than $31,000. The lowest paying community college is Heart of Georgia Technical College in Georgia, where the faculty members make seven times less than the faculty at Saddleback.

Women faculty members tend to earn less than their male counterparts even though the number of women faculty members has been on a dramatic rise. The net increase in women faculty members in the past 15 years has been 73.8 percent whereas the male faculty has increased by only 6.2 percent.

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