November 2019 Advocate: Administrators’ pay ranks #1 in state, but faculty not keeping up

SALARY COMPARISONS

While our administrators’ salaries are ranked #1 in the state, our full-time faculty salaries rank below the top tier of Bay 10 districts and our part-time faculty salary rankings are in the lower half of Bay 10 districts
Meanwhile, the number of SMCCCD administrators increased 55% since 2012

by Eric Brenner, Advocate Editor

How do our district’s administrator, full-time and part-time faculty salaries compare to the rankings of other California community districts statewide and within the Bay 10 districts? And how has the headcount of the number of administrators as compared to full-time faculty in our district changed in recent years? To answer these questions, we researched the latest data available from a number of sources including the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Data Mart, the Association of California Community College Administrators’ annual Salary Survey, the California Federation of Teachers’ annual Salary Comparisons and the Santa Rosa All Faculty Association’s annual Salary Study. Our findings are pretty striking!

Quite impressively, the average salary for all of the educational administrators in our district ($198,975) is ranked #1 in the state (!), based on the most recent (2018) data from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO). Looking at the statewide salary rankings for specific administrative positions, the salaries of SMCCCD’s Chancellor, College Presidents, Chief Business Officer, and Chief Human Relations Officer — are all #1 in the state according to the latest (2018) Association of California Community College Administrators’ survey.

Full-time faculty salaries

While our district’s administrators’ salaries rank #1 in the state, our full-time faculty salaries are ranked quite a bit behind the top — roughly in the 2nd-20th range (depending on step/column) statewide. Among the Bay 10 districts, our full-time faculty salaries are ranked behind Marin, Ohlone, San Jose and West Valley/Mission at multiple steps/columns, as shown in red in the tables below.

It is worth noting that along with our district, Marin, San Jose and West Valley/Mission are the other “Basic Aid” or “Self-Supporting” districts in the Bay 10 group, so it is logical to compare our salary rankings most closely to these districts. (Since “Basic Aid” districts are funded directly from local property tax income, rather from FTES, “Basic Aid” districts have higher revenues than FTES districts.)

Full-time faculty statewide salary rankings among Bay 10 districts

San Mateo Chabot C.Costa Foothill Marin Ohlone Peralta SF SJ W.Valley
MA/step 1 6 27 33 32 17 7 72 28 4 13
MA/step 6 2 17 54 22 19 7 72 24 3 12
MA+60, Step 21 20 34 54 56 11 3 59 26 4 9
Max w/ Doc. 16 25 61 64 7 9 50 36 15 3

Red bolded figures indicate other Bay 10 districts’ salary rates ranked higher than SMCCCD

(source: CFT Full-Time Salary Comparisons)
Note: The CFT Full-Time Salary Comparisons include salary rates in five separate selected steps/columns from salary schedules from all 72 community college districts in California in effect as of June 2019. The steps/columns included are: Masters Degree, Step 1; Masters Degree +5 Years, Step 6; Masters Degree +30 units +10 Years: Step 11; Masters Degree +60 units +20 Years: Step 21; Highest Salary with Doctorate. We omitted the MA +30 units data in this table because SMCCCD does not have that column on our schedule.

Full-time faculty statewide salary rankings among Bay 10 districts

San Mateo Chabot C.Costa Foothill Marin Ohlone Peralta SF SJ W.Valley
Max Highest Non-Doc   17 30 54 21 6 5 23 27 23 2

Red bolded figures indicate other Bay 10 districts’ salary rates ranked higher than SMCCD

(source: Santa Rosa All Faculty Association Study
Note: The AFA Study includes salary rates for 36 steps just at the Highest Non-Doctorate class (HND) from all 72 community college districts in California in effect as of 2019. For brevity, we only included the Maximum Highest Non-Doctorate step in this table. SMCCCD’s rankings for all HND steps ranged from #6 statewide at step 9 to #21 statewide at step at step 22.

Our part-time faculty salary rankings are in the lower half of Bay 10 districts

Our part-time faculty salaries (according to the CFT’s 2018-19 comps) are ranked 22nd (MA/step 1), 14th (MA/step 5), 11th (MA+30 units/step 10) and 17th (highest salary without PhD) statewide (according to the CFT 2018-19 survey.) In the Bay 10 districts our part-time salaries rank behind Chabot, Foothill, Marin, SF, San Jose and West Valley/Mission. We are roughly in the same range as Contra Costa and Ohlone and only significantly higher ranked than Peralta. See the details in the table below.

Part-time faculty statewide salary rankings among Bay 10 districts

San Mateo Chabot C.Costa Foothill Marin Ohlone Peralta SF SJ W.Valley
MA/step 1 22 10 23 5 1 17 58 3 6 4
MA/step 5 14 9 25 6 1 15 53 5 4 2
MA+30 / step 10 11 8 9 6 1 15 31 7 4 3
Max w/out Doctorate 17 12 13 7 2 18 10 3 5 4

Red bolded figures indicate other Bay 10 districts’ salary rates ranked higher than SMCCCD

(source: CFT Part-Time Salary Comparisons)
Note: The CFT Part-Time Salary Comparisons include pay rates in four separate selected steps/columns from salary schedules from all 72 community college districts in California in effect as of June 2019. The steps/columns included were: Masters Degree, Step 1; Masters Degree Step 5 or 9th Semester; Masters Degree +30 units, Step 10 or 19th semester; Highest Salary without a Doctorate.

Number of administrators compared to full-time faculty

Not only are administrators’ salaries in our district the highest in the state, but the number of academic administrators has increased significantly over the last 7 years (according to the California Community College Chancellor’s Office Data Mart’s “Employee Category Headcount Distribution by District/Primary Location,” as shown in the chart at left.) In 2012, SMCCCD had a total of 29 academic administrators and 318 full-time faculty in the district. By 2018, the number of academic administrators in the district had jumped to 45, a 55% jump from 2012 to 2018, while the number of full-time faculty had increased to 362, a 14% rise from 2012 to 2018.

SMCCCD Employee Headcount

Academic Administrators FT Faculty
2018 45 362
2017 38 353
2016 42 338
2015 40 333
2014 38 338
2013 31 319
2012 29 318

Summary:
Administrators: 55% increase from 2012 to 2018
Faculty: 14% increase from 2012 to 2018

(source: CCCCO Data Mart)

Conclusion

Given that our district has a healthy budget and has provided our growing number of administrators with the highest salaries in the state, it is time that our colleges’ full-time and part-time faculty salaries should be comparably top-ranked!