CSU hikes staff pay

By M.A. Anastasi
Summer Forty-Niner

Cal State Long Beach freshmen and sophomores may need one less class to graduate and teaching students can transfer an additional course as a result of action taken by Cal State University trustees Wednesday.
 
And while snippy negotiations between faculty and CSU continue, the trustees also ratified tentative agreements that give 5 to 6 percent raises to 15,000 CSU employees represented by eight bargaining units.

The largest of those units is the California State Employees Association, which represents most of the staff at CSULB. Unions representing university police, physicians and dentists, and craftsmen such as electricians also had their contracts ratified.

The CSEA has not yet ratified the proposed contract but is expected to do so later this month, according to Pauline Robinson, one of the union's officials.
"This was one of the best rounds of negotiations that I have ever experienced," Robinson said. "We strongly recommend ratification."
 
CSULB employees could see the raises reflected in their paychecks by the end of August, according to CSU spokesman Ken Swisher.

Robert Maxson, CSULB's president, had his pay raised by trustees about 6.5 percent to $236,688 on Wednesday. The hike keeps him the second-highest paid campus president in the CSU system. Only Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's Warren Baker earns more ($244,000), according to the chancellor's office.

For students, the most significant news to emerge from the trustees' meeting, which began on Tuesday, was the decision to reduce the minimum number of units from 124 to 120.

David Spence, the executive vice chancellor, argued that the reduction puts CSU in line with the University of California and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, which both long have used 120 as the minimum unit benchmark. He noted that a student taking a normal course load of 15 units over four years would still wind up four units short of graduation with the 124 requirement.

The extra four units were linked to an obsolete physical-education requirement, according to the chancellor's office.

Not all majors will be affected, Swisher said. Many majors, particularly those in engineering and archetecture, require significantly more than 124 units already.

The university will be asking every department in each university to scrutinize its requirements when it undergoes its usual review, which normally take place every five years. The departments will be instructed to look hard at their requirements to see if a class can be eliminated.

However, Swisher said, if the department determines it cannot, then students may be able to take one less elective course, depending on department requirements.

The university does not expect to complete the process in time to affect upperclassmen, Swisher said.

In moves designed to make it easier for future teachers to move through the system and to put CSU more in line with the UC system, the trustees passed two proposals affecting future teachers and one affecting students who are beginning their freshman year of high school this fall.

Effective immediately, students may transfer six units of teacher-education coursework instead of three from community colleges. Also, CSU is to establish a uniform admissions standard for teacher-education programs throughout the system. Those standards presently vary from campus to campus.

Incoming high school freshmen, who will be students at CSU in 2004, will have their GPAs calculated differently.

The new GPA formula will take into account only college preparatory classes -- not courses such as physical education, shop or home economics.
With Wednesday's labor developments, there remain only two bargaining units that have yet to reach agreement with CSU -- Academic Professionals of California and the California Faculty Association.

Both unions are arguing against merit pay, which is a lynchpin of CSU Chancellor Charles Reed's platform and a significant part of the total salary pool that the staff unions approved.

In addition, staff are to receive enhanced dental and insurance benefits, the university announced.

Reed and Ralph Pesqueira, the trustee who chairs CSU's bargaining committee, were both pleased.

"I would like to commend the union representatives for the spirit of cooperation they provided throughout," Reed said. "They went about the negotiation process in a very professional manner."

Added Pesqueira, "This is very encouraging. I see a silver lining growing brighter. The trustees are committed to seeing that faculty and staff compensation is at the highest possible level we can obtain from the state."

In addition to CSULB's Maxson, other campus presidents received raises averaging 6 percent. Reed himself, as well as the university's vice chancellors, also were rewarded by the trustees with pay raises averaging 6 percent.