Title: An act relating to pay equity for part-time community and technical college faculty.

Brief Description: Requiring pay equity for community and technical college part-time faculty.

Sponsors: Senate Committee on Labor, Commerce, Research & Development (originally sponsored by Senators Kohl-Welles, Delvin, Shin, Spanel, Carrell, Fairley, Keiser, Roach, Jacobsen, Poulsen, Kline, Pridemore, McAuliffe, Weinstein, Eide, Berkey, Rasmussen and Rockefeller).

Brief History:

Higher Education: 3/29/05, 4/1/05 [DP].

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION

Majority Report: Do pass. Signed by 12 members: Representatives Kenney, Chair; Sells, Vice Chair; Cox, Ranking Minority Member; Rodne, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Buri, Dunn, Fromhold, Hasegawa, Jarrett, Ormsby, Priest and Roberts.

Staff: Barbara McLain (786-7383).

Background:

In 1996, the Legislature directed the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) to develop a 10-year plan and submit recommendations to address pay disparity among full and part-time college faculty. The SBCTC convened a Best Practices Task Force which submitted a report in the Fall of 1996.

Among the topics discussed in the report was whether part-time faculty should be paid on a "pro rata" basis or a "parity" basis compared to full-time faculty. Pro rata assumes that part-time faculty have proportionally the same teaching, counseling, and administrative workloads as full-time faculty. A pro rata pay schedule would pay a half-time faculty at 50 percent of full-time. Parity pay assumes that part-time faculty do not always have the same non-teaching duties as full-time faculty, and could therefore be paid on a lower salary schedule.

The report recommended a combination of the two approaches, to be implemented over the ensuing 10-year period. At that time, the estimated cost to implement pay equity over the 10-year period was $15.8 million for each biennium. The Legislature has since provided additional funding to address part-time faculty pay, but these amounts have not equaled the requests by the SBCTC.

Summary of Bill:

It is the goal of the Legislature to provide sufficient funding in the 2005-2007, 2007-2009, and 2009-2011 biennia, within available funds, for community and technical colleges to implement and maintain pro rata pay for part-time college faculty.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Available.

Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For: Part-time faculty shoulder the burden of instruction at community and technical colleges. The state simply must do more to compensate them adequately. With budget constraints, it will not be possible to fully fund pay equity this biennium, but this bill sends a strong message that the Legislature intends to accomplish this goal. This is an important policy statement to make and place into statute, whatever the amount of money appropriated. This is a clear, uncomplicated, and focused solution to the salary disparity issue.

Testimony Against: The SBCTC is very strongly supportive of significant and immediate salary increases for part-time faculty. But the original bill reflected a combination of pro rata and parity pay for these faculty, and that is the correct approach to take. A pro rata-only approach devalues the out-of-classroom responsibilities that full-time faculty, and only some part-time faculty, engage in.

Persons Testifying: (In support) Senator Kohl-Welles, prime sponsor; Sandra Schroeder, American Federation of Teachers-Washington; Phil Jack, Green River Community College; and Gary King, Washington Education Association.

(Opposed) John Boesenberg, State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

Persons Signed In To Testify But Not Testifying: None.