This Update is from your SCFA Bargaining Team: Chief Negotiator Ralph McGill, FT Negotiator Kent Fortin, and PT Negotiator Kim Stevens.

SCFA Values its Members
In the past weeks, your SCFA Leadership Team has met with our general membership and hosted an open forum; we have surveyed members and then gathered, analyzed, and discussed the results; we have reached out via phone to members individually in an ongoing listening tour, and we’ve communicated with you via email and in one-on-one meetings. We appreciate and value our members’ feedback– all our efforts are undertaken with members’ input and concern in mind.

Community Funded Model
You may have heard that Sierra College is now a “Basic Aid” or “Community Funded” district. “Basic Aid,” “Excess Tax,” and “Community Funded” are all terms that refer to the same concept. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, Sierra College attained community funded status. Seven other California Community College (CCC) districts are also community funded: Marin, Mira Costa, South Orange, West Valley/Mission, Jan Jose/Evergreen, Napa Valley, San Luis Obispo County, and San Mateo.

Most CCCs receive their primary funding directly from the state based on enrollment and other metrics, with the state allocating the funds. Community funded districts, conversely, collect enough local property taxes to fund themselves entirely and do not receive state apportionment funding, even keeping any excess local revenue they generate. This is significant for Sierra College in numerous ways. Importantly, the addition of this ongoing excess local revenue argues for faculty salaries that are commensurate with other community funded districts.  

Background on Bargaining Position
For clarification, the District’s latest proposal is a parallel document with the April 2025 Tentative Agreement (with one sentence removed, the Distance Learning MOU attached, and the 2.3% COLA included), but it’s not the TA. As such, the District’s latest proposal is, in essence, their first offer to the 2024-25 bargaining team. The appropriate procedural responses SCFA’s counter– in other words, our first offer to the District. It should reflect SCFA’s strong counteroffer, not a “do-no-harm” temporary measure. We expect a counterproposal from the District, from which negotiations will proceed. We will continue to update members throughout the process.

Hourly Schedule: Two Takes
The district’s proposal eliminates all references to the hourly schedule and proposes to have a lecture and lab schedule. Doing so seeks to expressly redefine every unit of pay for lecture/lab time as encompassing two hours of work (one for lecture, one for prep).  SCFA seeks to define the “instructional rate” as one hour of teaching.

The Long Beach Lawsuit and its Implications
Roberts v. Long Beach Community College District is ongoing litigation in which part-time instructors have filed a lawsuit against their employers to get paid for all the hours of work that they’ve done. This has significant implications for all districts and unions currently engaged in collective bargaining.

Districts throughout the state are proposing problematic language that potentially could result in more lawsuits. In short, SCFA is aware of its duty to avoid any contract language that results in our members being forced to work off the clock. As we continue to put forth our best and strongest bargaining efforts in this litigious environment, we believe that the opportunity now is to invest in solving the problem and putting it into educators and students rather than using that money to defend costly lawsuits.  

Highlights of SCFA’s Proposal to the District

Based on salary models of comparable local districts’ salaries as well as other community funded districts, SCFA’s proposal includes 15% salary-schedule increase along with the 2.3% COLA.  

With the District’s choice to dissolve MINT several existing items are ongoing concerns for SCFA. The yearly “true up” of remaining funds, a health benefit cap increase, part time health benefits reimbursement model offered by the state, and reassign hours for SCFA leaders would traditionally have been negotiated in MINT. SCFA’s proposal incorporates recouping those funds.  

SCFA is proposing that labs be loaded and paid as lectures.  

SCFA is including a Time Certification Process (TCP) for non-exempt SCFA unit members.  We realize that this is a contentious and difficult issue, and as such we are determined to build a meaningful and reasonable process that facilitates payment for all hours worked by our members and that protects members from discipline or retaliation. In conjunction with the District and upon mutual agreement, a TCP will be developed and implemented to ensure fair and equitable accounting of all non-exempt employee hours.

SCFA 2025

This Bargaining Update has been assembled and sent by Jen Vernon, SCFA Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice Director and At-Large Officer supporting Communications within 48 hours of negotiations. Reach us atscfaleadership@gmail.com. Find helpful links to update contact info and learn more about the Union under the SCFA 2025 button below.