BILL REQ. #:  H-1048.2 

Read first time 02/03/2005.   Referred to Committee on Higher Education.

     AN ACT Relating to pay equity for part-time community and technical college faculty; and adding a new section to chapter 28B.50 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   A new section is added to chapter 28B.50 RCW to read as follows:
     (1) The legislature finds that Washington's community and technical college system is among the most successful in the nation, enrolling more than sixty percent of postsecondary students and geographically dispersed across the state to offer maximum opportunity for residents to pursue basic skills, academic transfer, work force training, and personal enrichment.
     (2) The legislature further finds that part-time and adjunct faculty play a significant role in the success of the colleges, teaching nearly half of the overall instructional workload.
     (3) In 1996, the legislature directed the state board for community and technical colleges to conduct a best practices audit on compensation practices and working conditions for part-time faculty. The best practices task force developed a ten-year plan to improve the salaries, benefits, working conditions, and ratios of part-time to full-time faculty in the college system. Among the goals of the plan was to reach, at the end of ten years, a level of pay equity for part-time faculty. Although state investments have been made in the intervening years, the goal has not been met.
     (4) As the ten-year anniversary of the best practices task force approaches, the legislature reaffirms its commitment to part-time faculty at community and technical colleges and to the goals of the best practices task force.
     (5) In the 2005-07 biennial appropriations act and thereafter, the legislature shall appropriate sufficient funds for allocation to the community and technical colleges for the colleges to implement and maintain pay equity for part-time faculty as described in the final recommendations of the best practices task force convened under RCW 28B.50.4892. However, if the legislature requires an update of the 1996 best practices task force study, funding under this section shall implement the new recommendations in the study regarding pay equity for part-time faculty. Salary schedules implemented under this section are subject to local collective bargaining and shall reflect that some part-time faculty have a workload proportional to full-time faculty and should be paid on a pro rata basis and other part-time faculty have a proportionately smaller workload than full-time faculty and should be paid on a parity basis.