Will Governor Schwarzenegger Support Community Colleges?

Now that the election is over and the people have spoken—what’s next? Will the California community colleges benefit from a change in Administrations? During the campaign, Governor-elect Schwarzenegger generally ignored higher education issues. What impact the new Governor will have on the state’s public higher education systems seems to be a big question mark.

Although Schwarzenegger indicated that he would not cut education, we can assume he was talking about K-12 schools. On a positive note, according to Schwarzenegger’s web site on education issues, “I will propose the Legislature fully fund community colleges under Proposition 98 requirements.” If the Governor-elect holds to that commitment, it means that he would propose that community colleges receive at least the statutory required 10.93% of Proposition 98 funds in his 2004 proposed State Budget, introduced on January 10, 2004.

With the State Budget crisis, estimates are being kicked around that the state deficit could rise to approximately $20 billion. These estimates are based on the $8 billion that still remained after closing the books on the 2003-04 budget, another $4 billion that could be in the mix if Schwarzenegger is successful in repealing the vehicle license fee and $2 billion to $10 billion that could be lost in the 2003-04 budget as a result of pending lawsuits.

Thus, mid-year cuts are being talked about, but will community colleges be affected? No one knows at this point.

In testimony to the Assembly Higher Education Committee on September 23rd, the Chancellor’s Office estimated that funding community colleges at 10.93% in 2004-05 would increase community college funding by almost $700 million. To put this amount in perspective, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) indicated that state and property tax funding for community colleges in 2003-04 is approximately $4.5 billion. A $700 million augmentation would thus represent an increase of more than 15%.

Note that community colleges only received a 9.6% share of Proposition 98 funds in the current year. One can only imagine that if the Legislature and Governor were serious about allocating community colleges their fair share of Proposition 98 funds, a conflict would occur with K-12 schools. With limited resources available, if community college received 10.93% of Proposition 98 funds, K-12 schools would receive less on a percentage basis than they have received over the past decade.

Stay tuned.

—Arnold Bray

Governor-elect Schwarzenegger Could Have an Early Say on Who is a Member of the Community College Board of Governors

The September 6, 2003 Update (see page 196, “Senate Republicans not Voting for Governor Davis’s Appointees”) contained an article which pointed out that Senate Republicans were withholding votes on the Governors appointments to various boards and commissions that required a two-thirds vote. Although Republicans are in the minority in the Senate, they have the ability to block confirmation of gubernatorial appointments that require a two-thirds vote. Community College Board of Governor members require a two-thirds vote for confirmation.

Currently there are three members of the Board of Governors awaiting confirmation. They are: Melinda F. Guzman, Fahari Jeffers, and Ronald W. Wong. These appointments were held up by the Senate Republicans. Appointees who have not been confirmed, of course, could be withdrawn by the Governor-elect once he becomes Governor.

Also, there are two members of the Board whose terms expire on January 15, 2004. They are: Brian E. Conley (trustee representative) and Catherine L. Unger. In addition, the two student members of the Board could be replaced in 2004. And the Governor-elect could potentially appoint a classified staff member to the Board, as a result of pending legislation (SB 644, Burton, D-San Francisco) currently awaiting Governor Davis’ signature.

Thus, Governor-elect Schwarzenegger could potentially appoint eight new members to the Board of Governors by June 30, 2004.

Other key appointments from the perspective of the community college system are the Director of Finance and the Secretary for Education. Those positions are currently held by Steve Peace and Kerry Mazzoni, respectively. Traditionally, the weeks from the end of the election until the Governor-Elect takes office (officially November 15th) are filled with news of key appointments to the new administration. Press reports indicate that the Governor can make approximately 1,400 discretionary appointments.

The ripple affect of the historic recall could have a major impact on the California Community Colleges because the Board responsible for establishing fiscal and policy direction for the system could see a 50% change in its membership during the crucial 2004-05 budget process.

Time will tell whether all of these changes will be good, bad, or indifferent.

—Arnold Bray

Davis Takes Final Action on Legislation as Governor

Completing one of his final acts as Governor of the state of California, Gray Davis took action on more than 200 bills on his desk just two days prior to the October 12, 2003, deadline for signing and vetoing legislation. Davis had rejected a request by Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger that he not sign any legislation during his final days in office. Apparently, Schwarzenegger was not aware that if Davis took no action on the 200 bills sitting on his desk, they would have automatically become law on January 1, 2004. If Governor-elect Schwarzenegger doesn’t like any of the bills signed into law by Davis, he may ask the Legislature to help him repeal those laws. This may be a quick lesson in politics for the new Governor if he thinks the Democratically controlled Legislature will vote to repeal the majority of the new laws they authored.

Governor Davis took action on the following bills that have an impact on community colleges:

Chaptered Legislation (new law becomes effective January 1, 2004)

 AB 109 (Chapter 276/2003) would define the prohibition on the refusal or failure to meet and negotiate in good faith to include the knowing provision by a public school employer to an exclusive representative of inaccurate information regarding its financial resources, whether or not it is provided in response to a request for information.

 AB 290 (Chapter 880/2003) would require that classified employees to be laid off be given a written notice on or before April 29, or not less than 45 days prior to the effective layoff date, if the termination date of any specially funded program is other than June 30, or if classified employees are subject to layoff as a result of a bona fide reduction or elimination of a service performed by any department.

 AB 310 (Chapter 344/2003) would require the governing board of a community college district that collects or deducts dues, agency fees, fair share fees, or any other fee or amount of money from an employee’s salary for the purpose of transmitting the money to an employee organization, to transmit the money to the employee organization within 15 days of issuing the paycheck containing the deduction. The legislation contains a penalty if the district fails to comply with the 15-day requirement.

 AB 593 (Chapter 819/2003) would require the Secretary of State to provide voter registration forms and information to students in all high schools, community colleges, and campuses of the California State University or University of California.

 AB 626 (Chapter 559/2003) makes legislative findings that 15-passenger vans are unsafe and declares the intent of the Legislature that all school districts, private schools, community colleges, and the California State University should require that 15-passenger vans owned by those entities only be driven by a person holding a commercial driver’s license.

 AB 654 (Chapter 882/2003) provides that, whenever possible, part-time faculty should be paid for the first week of an assignment when class is cancelled less than two weeks before the beginning of a semester. This bill also provides that part-time faculty should be considered to be an integral part of their departments and given all rights normally afforded to full-time faculty in the areas of book selection, participation in department activities, and the use of college resources.

 AB 719 (Chapter 838/2003) allows members of CalPERS to purchase up to five years of service credit in order to enhance their retirement benefit. This a cost neutral bill because the member pays the entire cost of the benefit.

 AB 1082 (Chapter 764/2003) allows a local agency that adopted a local definition of domestic partnership prior to January 1, 2004, to provide health care benefits to those domestic partners.

 SB 25 (Chapter 907/2003) would, operative July 1, 2004, provide that any person who uses a consumer credit report in connection with the approval of credit, may not lend money, extend credit, or complete the purchase, lease, or rental of goods or noncredit related services without taking reasonable steps to verify the consumer’s identity, to ensure that the consumer is not the victim of identity theft. In addition, the bill specifies that community college student’s social security numbers may not be used for identification purposes after 2007.

 SB 259 (Chapter 783/2003) authorizes school or community college districts to pay school employees the difference between their civilian pay and their military pay for up to 180 days, if the employee, as a member of the California National Guard, is order to active military duty.

 SB 338 (Chapter 786/2003) makes several changes in current law relative to community college concurrent enrollment, including the specification of eligible courses, the determination of academic credit for courses completed, appropriate claiming of per-student funding for courses offered and the disclosure of course availability.

 SB 644 (Chapter 860/2003) revises the composition of the Board of Governors to require that one of the 17 gubernatorial appointments to the Board be a classified (non-teaching) community college employee.

 SB 955 (Chapter 25/2003) would, for persons employed under this provision, prohibit service in professional ancillary activities, including, but not necessarily limited to, governance, staff development, grant writing, and advising student organizations, from being used for purposes of calculating eligibility for contract or regular status, unless otherwise provided for in a collective bargaining agreement applicable to a person employed under this provision.

Vetoed Legislation
To our surprise, Governor Davis vetoed the following bills:

 SB 328 (Escuita, D-Whittier) targeted the same group of undocumented immigrants who were singled out two years ago by a new state law granting them “resident” rates to attend California colleges rather than pay much higher out-of-state tuition rates. To qualify, those students must have attended a California high school for three years, obtained a California high school diploma or its equivalent, and signed an affidavit stating that they have applied to become a legal resident. The bill vetoed by Governor Davis took the concept a step further by allowing these students to seek waivers from the $18-per-unit fee community college fee.

If SB 328 had been signed into law, an estimated 1,500 undocumented immigrants currently attending community colleges would have qualified for a waiver of the $18 fee. SB 328 would have cost the state an estimated $315,000 to $500,000 annually in lost tuition revenue.

Governor Davis cited the state’s shaky economic condition in rejecting SB 328. He stated in his veto message, “I believe deserving immigrant students should have an opportunity to pursue a good quality education so that they can productively contribute to our economy. In future years when our economy has recovered, I would recommend that the governor and Legislature seriously consider providing financial aid to deserving immigrant students.”

 AB 457 (Negrete-McLeod, D-Chino) (see article on page of this Update) would have allowed state and local governments and schools to offer workers an incentive to retire early, including two years of service credit and two years of age credit.

In his veto message, Davis said that the bill would have created “the very real potential” that government would pay more to encourage workers to retire who would have done so anyway. It appears that the Governor was more concerned about the impact on state workers than local school employees. He also pointed out that he already had signed a bill (AB 719) that allows workers to purchase up to five years of service credit to enhance their retirement benefits at no cost to the public employer.

 AB 1051 (Goldberg, D-Los Angeles) would have revised and recast the statutory provisions that govern the methodology by which public agencies providing public utility services assess their capital costs for providing those services to school districts, community college districts, the California State University, the University of California, and state agencies.

The public educational agencies were opposed to AB 1051, contending that they could be unfairly charged new fees or fee increases. In his veto message, Governor Davis stated that fee increases and surcharges could be imposed without mutual agreement and removes the “actually serving” and price deflator limitations. In addition, he expressed concern about the short statute of limitations on recovering past overcharges, and the little in the way of notice and disclosure for new fees and fee increases. Due to the potential negative fiscal impact on educational institutions he could not support the measure.

Conclusion
During the past five years of his tenure in the Governor’s Office, Davis has signed approximately 5,000 bills into law. The state of California probably could have done without at least half of those bills (editorial comment). This time next year, a new Governor will be signing or vetoing bills. Since the majority of all the legislation that is placed on the Governor’s desk is authored by a Democrat, it will be interesting to see if the number of new laws being enacted stays the same or is reduced.

Stay tuned.

—Arnold Bray

Community College System May Have A New Chancellor By November

After eight years on the job, Tom Nussbaum is stepping down as Chancellor of the largest postsecondary education system in the world. As you are aware, Tom has announced his intention to leave the position of Chancellor in January 2004. As a result, the Board of Governors has been searching for a replacement.

A search committee, which reviewed candidates from within and outside of California, has narrowed the list to seven candidates. The selection process has been somewhat secretive, but Catherine Unger, president of the Board of Governors, has indicated that a decision on a new chancellor might come as early as their November 3 and 4 meeting at Cuesta College.

Of course, rumors abound as to who the new chancellor may be—those rumors include the possibility that the top three candidates are all from California, with specific California community college experience at the CEO and community organization levels.

The attributes that the search committee is looking for in the new chancellor are someone who can articulate a vision that will be heard by the system, the Legislature, and the Governor; and someone who can work with a variety of interest groups from within the community college system.

Whoever gets the job of Chancellor will immediately be presented with numerous challenges. The system is still trying to rebound from significant budget cuts, increased student fees, and lost enrollments. The budget process for 2004-05 doesn’t appear to hold much hope for any significant increases in the funding levels for community colleges. Also, the Chancellor’s office is underfunded and under staffed to meet the needs of the system and accountability demanded by the state.

Nussbaum knows well the constraints of a job that requires working with 72 community college districts, teacher unions, and various interest groups. He had viewed the job as a coalition building role that brings different groups together and hopefully achieve consensus. When asked what advice he would offer to his successor, who will come to work in then midst of a crisis, he offered: “Remember, 95 percent of this position is persuasion.”

—Arnold Bray

Is Out-of-State Sick Leave Transferable into California?

Q. I have a certificated employee that comes to us from the state of Washington. Is his sick leave balance transferable from the state of Washington to California?

A. Under California’s Education Code, a district is required to accept transfer of all accumulated but unused sick leave from a school district or community college district (ref. Education Code Sections 44979 and 87782) within the state of California. There are no requirements, however, to recognize accumulated sick leave from another state.

You might review your collective bargaining agreement to make sure there are no provisions regarding out of state transfers. It is not likely that there are any contract provisions, but it should be checked just to make certain.

—Ken Hall