CNC Faculty Speaks Up

Monday, March 10, 2008 04:00 AM

Later this morning, the President of the College of New Caledonia will hold a media conference to talk about the budget crisis and lay off notices that have been issued to those employed at CNC.

What is not so well known, is that the President of the Faculty Association of the College of New Caledonia George Davison has submitted comments to the College Board. A copy of the entire presentation is attached to this story.

In those comments, Davison says staff were not involved in any meaningful way in the budget preparations, the lay offs will affect 22-24 insructors, the administration has grown from 1 person earning over $100,000 a year in 1991 to 3 people earning more than $100,000 easch two years ago, and to 10 this year earning more than $100,000 each . Davison says the administration is top heavy.

He also speaks about the Marketing and Recruitment budget , saying it has ballooned from $133,553 in 2004-05 to a budgeted figure of $668,876 this year. That department, he says, has grown from one to 10 people over that period.

George Davison’s Presentation to the

College Board In-Camera Session, February 22, 2008

Revised for FACNC General Meeting, March 1, 2008

It’s a sad day for CNC. I’m wearing black today in sympathy with the students. For a long time, we’ve been opponents of tuition increases, and today is no different. It’s also sad because of the budget crisis at the College, and the likelihood of more program cuts and layoffs. I asked our office assistant to tell me how many faculty we have currently, so I could say “I’m George Davison, and I represent X number of Faculty here at the College.” To give you a benchmark, we had almost 500 faculty voting after the strike in 1995. The number now is 294. 294. That’s who’s left – FT and PT - after all the cuts that have been made in the last 6 years.

But before I talk about alternatives, I have three preliminary comments.

1. In response to the Board not letting Jan Mastromatteo speak in my absence in November, and the Chair’s letter to me about the process we have to go through to address the Board – we are to put in writing a week ahead of the meeting a detailed summary of what we propose to say (difficult when the Board’s agenda comes out only a few days before the meeting). We will not agree to be muzzled in what we can or cannot say to the Board. I’ve been addressing Board meetings since 1993; in fact, even before Bill 22 provided for constituency representation on Boards, then-President Terry Weninger set up an Academic Council (forerunner to today’s Education Council), and invited constituency reps to sit on the Board. I sat at this very table until the legislation passed and elections were held for Board positions. Unless you’d like to communicate by press release, I suggest you review the process of accessing the Board.

2. The Faculty Association has long viewed the Board as our employer. Just about everything that’s done here is in the name of the Board. Probably the best example is that the Board signs our Collective Agreement – we even used to have Board members sitting on the College bargaining committee. But after Bill 22 was passed, College administrations and the Ministry subverted the legislation by turning Boards into policy Boards – “Carverizing” them by structuring things so that the Board’s only employee was the President, who carried out the policy goals set by the Boards. We were never consulted on this conversion, and we never agreed to it. We still believe that the Board is our employer, and when we have problems with Vice-Presidents or Presidents, we take our concerns to the Board. We do not appreciate being told that such issues are administrative matters and cannot be dealt with by the Board; if we thought that administration could or would deal with them, we would deal with them directly.

3. This budget process is very problematic – some might call it a sham. The College announces a large deficit, throws in a few numbers no-one can understand, and calls Town Hall meetings and Board presentations for input. This is not the way to deal with the serious problems we face. Town Hall meetings end up being little more than finger-pointing – everyone can justify why they or someone else should be cut. Board presentations could be perceived as little more than posturing. But I’m not posturing today – we have serious concerns with what’s happening and serious questions about the choices that are being made.

There was no real consultation on the budgeting guidelines. We’ve seen many of them before this current crisis, but this time new criteria were added that we completely reject. It appears that there is no understanding of the implications of program and discipline suspensions and faculty layoffs. We know what utilization rates are; we know what happened the last time we had a deficit this large. It translated into 22-24 layoff notices. I’m expecting about the same again this year, and it’s all so unnecessary.

I’d like to point to the way another college has handled its problems. Northwest College is smaller than CNC, with a budget perhaps $10 million less. But when faced with declining enrolments and a deteriorating local economy two years ago, faculty and Board agreed to a moratorium on layoffs. They worked together to solve their problems without cutting programs and laying off large numbers of faculty.

The board here has committed to keeping CNC a comprehensive community college. You need to live up to that commitment by working with us to develop a plan.

FACNC’s Alternative Budget

I’ve been looking over college budgets the last few weeks, and a few things struck me as odd, given the current crisis we’re facing. Here are the numbers taken from the College’s annual audited financial statements:

	Mar 31, 2003	Mar 31, 2004	Mar 31, 2005	Mar 31, 2006	March 31, 2007	Mar 31, 2008 Budget
CE Budget Actual Admin Return	7,142,244 5,722,897 1,384,093 82,882	6,731,381 5,257,336 1,361,745	6,415,375 4,510,917 1,136,389	5,714,192 5,097,394 1,088,616	4,917,466 4,479,535 1,082,766	4,895,577
Mar/R Budget Actual		125,000 46,573	126,360 133,553	129,947 203,939	580,197 643,027	668,876
VPA Budget Actual	763,048 772,132	797,083 857,583	886,824 998,883	976,822 1,060,923	1,087,458 900,635	1,061,173
Ancillary Bud Actual	183,183	144,354		185,121	141,586	58,154
Tuition	4,392,647	4,640,034	4,902,511	4,639,767	4,749,387	4,792,511
FTE	3274	3303	3327	3294	3352.92
Admin- Actual Number	3,217,972 42.3	3,382,774 44	3,609,508 45.4	3,269,239 40	3,879,239
Contingency					802,605
Total	36,785,715	37,704,156	37,839,823	39,692,052	41,296,722	41,981,901

First, there’s been a huge growth in the ranks and expense of the administration. We used to have one VP, now we have 3 in title and one more in practice – Dan Bradshaw.

In 1999, we had one position that earned over $100,000. As little as two years ago, there were only 3. Now we have 10. While the Human Resources Database shows 36 administrators and relatively flat costs for several years (36 admin and approximately 8-9% of the College’s total budget, between March 31, 2006 and March 31, 2007, the Public Bodies Reports show an increase of $670,255, from $1.7 million for 22 administrators (and only part of Dan Bradshaw’s first year) to almost $2.4 million for 25 administrators. In a little over a year, another half million dollars has been added in hiring another 6 administrators. We probably need new administrators in growth areas, but is this the best use of CNC’s resources when we’re facing a crisis?

Name	% increase remun.	% change expenses	Remuneration 2005-06	Expenses 2005-06	Remuneration 2006-07	Expenses 2006-07

Ashurst, C.	+6.14%	-16%	95,471.04	3,937.84	101,334.90	3,307.07
Blattner/Mallais
Bowman, J	+21.3%	+870.46%	107,267.04	1,471.81	130,116.23	14,283.32
Bradshaw, D*	+76.88%	-91.18%	59,673.23	16,921.46	105,551.60	1,492.84
Covington,P*	+14.25%	+234.36%	82,424.96	2,197.08	94,171.32	7,346.20
Fahlman, P	+8.83%	+46.03%	106,619.04	8,914.41	116,035.73	13,017.51
Farr, B	+9.75%	-35.18%	86,185.44	10,412.94	94,588.55	6,749.29
Grundman, D.	+6.54%	+ 5.6%	88,496.64	1353.39	94,282.18	1429.71
Hoyer, J.	+8.34%	+18.97%	88,496.64	4887.01	95,875.72	10,701.40
Ives, B	+9.68%	+41.66%	86,833.44	3,027.18	95,236.55	4,288.32
Jacques, L	+20.50%	+18.88%	101,383.36	25,775.33	122,170.90	30,641.97
Jonker, J	+6.22%	-34.38%	95,327.04	15,557.79	101,256.90	10,208.67
Lalonde, M.					55,933.84	52,459.99
Larson, D.
L’Herault					91,429.98	7,073.11
McAllister, S	+5.77%	+4.00%	95,254.06	2,469.03	100,752.90	3,585.85
Munro, C.		+682%	76,711.74	880.31	82,782.60	6002.52
Old, B	+6.55%	-4.49%	88,353.27	3,361.15	94,138.18	3,210.02
Ollech. S*	10.45%	+92.8%	81,573.00	1,763.50	90,100.08	3,400.00
O’Meara, J.
Plett, K	+6.55%	-88.41%	88,352.64	1,853.64	94,138.18	214.75
Precosky, D	+6.35%	+73.46%	95,246.01	1,967.17	101,297.82	3,412.35
Ragsdale, J.			No data		93,013.00	3297.64
Raper, S	+14.7%	-80.78%	68,411.00	8,585.51	78,467.68	1,650.13
Rossi, F.
Rossi, S.
Shelly, S	+6.55%	+570%	88,352.64	246.10	94,138.18	2,088.98
Tierney, M	+10.35%	+2.27%	82,843.20	36,959.12	91,420.19	37,909.33
Timbres, M	+6.22%	-78.0%	95,327.04	6,107.13	101,256.90	1,340.12
Wishart, C	+11.48%	-6.26%	100,978.08	4,746.66	112,574.82	4,449.49
Worth, M.
Total PB Report	+24.1%	+42.9%	1,959,580.55	163,395.56	2,432,064.93	233,560.58
Total Admin HRDB	+18%		3,269,239		3,879,239

* denotes administrators hired during the 2005-06 fiscal year – as a result their remuneration and expenses are affected by the fact that they were only in their position for a partial year

If you look at longer term trends, tracking administrative salary increases since 1999, Deans made roughly $7,000 more than top-of-scale faculty; now they make over $20,000 more – about 41-44% increases. The HR Director, Registrar, and Student Services Director (now a VP), have seen the largest increases - 52-54%. One of the reasons admin salaries have increased so quickly is something I discovered while looking at HRDB numbers: in 2005, all admin pay scales (10 of them) except the CEO had 5 steps, ranging from $50,442 to $120,000. In 2006, those grids were all shortened, with two or three steps removed from most of them. This means that administrators get much bigger pay increases and move to the top more quickly. Add more administrators, and there’s been a dramatic increase in the admin share of College resources.

Name	1998 or 99	2001	2003	2006	2007	% increase

Ashurst, C	60,678.70 (98)	71,543.88	89,747.76	95,471.04	101,334.90	41.6 (01-07)
Weninger/Bowman	97,945.23 (98) 100,815.79 (99)	110,354.18	128,133.17	107,267.04	130,116.23	32.8 29
Alexander/Gharakhanian/ Kahlke/Bradshaw	71,164.18 (98)	69,131.99	94,582.92	59,673.23 (part year)	105,551.60	48 (98-07) 52.7 (01-07)
Holm/Covington	68,149.44 (98)			82,424.96	94,171.32	38.1
Davies/Blattner/Mallais	67,638.00 (98)			77,174.48
Blake/Fahlman	86,573.82 (98)	79,094.14	94,789.92	106,619.04	116,035.73	34
Miller/Farr	70,543.90	76,466.74	89,949.76	86,185.44	94,588.55	34
Grundman, D.	61,211.62	70,725,36	85,977.84	88,496.64	94,282.18	54
Goode/Merrington/Hoyer	64,595.76 (98)	70,725.36	78,839.72	88,496.64	95,875.72	48.4 (98-07) 35.5 (01-07)
Bowman/Ives	70,785.50	76,486.74	90,089.76	86,833.44	95,236.55	34.5
Donovan/Giles/ Malcolm/Jacques	88,641.90 (98) 89,114.70 (99)	100,834.59	99,680.88	101,383.36	122,170.90	37
English/Jonker	71,372.80	76,486.74	87,364.00	95,327.04	101,256.90	41.9
Lalonde, M. (part year)					55,933.84
Hartman/Jacques/ L’Herault	68,058.80	75,622.74	88,829.76		91,429.98	34.3
Larson, D.
McAllister, S	53,675.56 (98) 68,536.16 (99)	71,248.34	90,249.46	95,254.06	100,752.90	47
Munro, C.	56,826.63	60,951.36	74,776.50	76,711.74	82,782.60	45.67
Old, B				88,353.27	94,138.18
Ollech. S*				81,573.00	90,100.08
O’Meara, J.
Plett, K	68,149.44 (98) 69,047.34 (99)	74,849.22	88,379.92	88,352.64	94,138.18	36.3
Giles/Precosky	70,447.90	74,327.40	90,089.76	95,246.01	101,297.82	43.8
Ragsdale, J.					93,013.00
Raper, S				68,411.00	78,467.68
Rossi, F.
Rossi, S.
Shelly, S	64,499.76 (98) 65,126.62	70,629.36	85,837.84	88,352.64	94,138.18	44.5
Tierney, M				82,843.20	91,420.19
Timbres, M	68,149. 44 (98) 70,447.90 (99)	76,390.74	89,949.76	95,327.04	101,256.90	43.7
Seens/Wishart	72,780.87 (98) 74,209.61 (99)	80,562.24	94,159.92	100,978.08	112,574.82	52
Worth, M.
Total PB Report				1,959,580.55	2,432,064.93
Faculty Salaries Top Bottom	63,400 43,900				78,729 49,688	24.1 13.2

Marketing and Recruitment – I recently contrasted Judy Jackson’s PR budget with the current budget in this department, and though it’s comparing apples and oranges, it’s still a telling tale. I was involved in the hiring of the manager, and recall a candidate from the DeVry Institute of Technology in Calgary saying that he spent more in a week than Judy spent in a year. Her budget was $20,000. Now other areas had marketing budgets – probably the President’s budget included some, along with the divisions. I also remember the role the Board played in determining how the College should address the problems we faced – the thesis that was done by a board member – and the resulting $125,000 allocated in 2004 to set up an effective tool in bringing students to CNC – only $46,573 was spent that first year.

The primary function of this area is to enhance enrolment. Effective marketing depart-ments serve their organizations by promoting successfully, channeling the product properly, and identifying needs. With respect to CNC, this requires finding prospective students, enhancing their awareness of the college, figuring out how the programs should be delivered (for instance, to address shifts in mills, or needs of working parents), and identifying ways in which existing programs might be re-worked to meet changing needs or aspirations of students. The marketing function requires close collaboration with the faculty who produce the courses.

An interesting thing happened in the years after the department was set up: in 2004-5, $126,360 was budgeted and $133,553 was spent; in 2005-6, $129,947 was budgeted and $203,939 spent. In 2006-7, an incredible $580,197 was budgeted and $643,027 was spent. Each year, the department significantly overspent its budget, and now the budget stands at $668,876! Ten people are employed in Marketing and Recruitment, where once it had been done by a volunteer committee – we had more students then! Though the current staff in marketing/recruitment do many needed things, arguably, they’re not bringing any students to CNC. Trades and health sciences have long wait lists – they don’t need to be recruited. It’s the under-enrolled areas like UT and Business that need marketing, and we’ve seen no result; indeed, numbers have declined the bigger the department gets. I have more brochures than students. Is this the best use for CNC’s scarce resources in a time of budgetary crisis? Add to that unnecessary duplication of services (eg. their own print room) and it’s time for some objective reorganization.

The Institute for Learning and Teaching has been on our list before. This center, as it was once called, was designed for faculty and used to be run with a little release time for faculty coordinators like Greg Kane, Paula Davies and Stan Chung. As technology improved, there was a need for a Distributed Learning Coordinator, and we fought hard to make sure it was directed by faculty. At its peak, with Lynn Jacques in charge and with ¼ release from her Mackenzie Regional Director’s job, several faculty and staff salaries were buried in this budget. It has never had a separate line item, so it’s been hard to tell how much it costs. We have argued before that mentoring, workshops and tech support are important, but they are unnecessary luxuries in a time of financial restraint. Faculty have access to a healthy PD Fund if they wish to initiate their own instructional activities, and volunteers have done much of the work. Is this the best use of scarce College resources?

Community Education – There’s been a long debate at the College about centralized vs decentralized CE. It was once housed in the various academic divisions. Then, about 20 years ago, there was a blended model with a director (Peter Robinson) and department, but also divisional activity. Trades had its own CE coordinator for a time (Neil Marshall). Then, around the time of the strike, CE was centralized under Cathe Wishart. Terry Weninger wanted to make it work with non-union instructors, but the problem was a Collective Agreement that said that faculty who were primarily engaged in the teaching function were members of the Faculty Association. We had a 3 ½ week long strike over that in 1995, but ultimately agreed to a contracting out process that’s been a model of cooperation for the system. But let’s look at what has happened. Over the past several years, CE (called Special and Temporary Programs in the budget) has always set a target significantly higher than is achieved, eg $7.1 million in 2003, compared to $5.7 million achieved in the end. In 2004-5, the shortfall was almost $2 million. It’s a little closer to reality now, but still has an almost ½ million shortfall. To achieve this, the College has spent between $1.36 million and $1.08 million – that’s a huge cost to achieve a return, but the actual return is even less. Since centralizing the offerings, the division has usually represented a net loss to the College. Why? Because its staff are not motivated to provide effective programs at competitive prices. Two big concerns are (1) This division appears to represent the classic case of a bureaucrat building an empire: high fixed costs, lots of people busy at desks, wheels spinning, but no real results. As a result, the division’s costs typically exceed its revenues. (2) The division appears to employ very bizarre costing procedures. Why does it need its own admissions process? Why duplicate other college services unnecessarily? The result is that the division’s management does not really know which programs are profitable. There are cases in which the division has lost proposals to other organizations because it quoted unreasonably high prices. This, it seems, is because it does not know how to assemble costs in order to make effective decisions.

We recommend returning CE back to the program divisions, under the care of their Deans. Deans and their faculty, dollar-strapped always to meet commitments, can much more effectively identify areas of need that can be met through continuing education services.

Other costs – Though labour relations are necessarily adversarial, CNC and the FA have been remarkably successful working out our differences with successive HR Directors. Since I’ve been active in the early 90s, only a handful of grievances have gone to arbitration. All that seemed to change when Ralph Troschke became President. The number of grievances grew, and the willingness to talk and come to a mutual understanding seemed to disappear. The Collective Agreement provisions have not changed; we haven’t changed, but administration has. Since I became Chief Steward in December 2005, we’ve had a huge number of grievances – a few have been settled, but many have not, and they’ve dragged on and on. We now have 5 lined up to go to arbitration, the first scheduled for next September. How much is this going to cost an institution that has a large deficit? This is a very expensive way not to talk.

The College listed in its budget document seven major reasons for the projected deficit – employee benefits, facility and utility costs were the most expensive. It’s very hard to question these aggregate numbers, so we’d like to see a breakdown. It’s also interesting that the College, up until now, has been saying that the biggest problem they have is with the way Trades programs are funded. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the 60 cent dollar figure. And it’s not just CNC – I’ve heard it from many different institutions. If CNC was funded properly for the instructional support costs of apprenticeship and trades foundation programs, there would be no deficit. Why now are all our problems the result of negotiated step increments for faculty or mat leave costs?

I’m also involved provincially in a Policy Table that was set up to deal with system issues that could not be negotiated at a Common Table. It has five institutional CEOs, from BCIT, Northern Lights, Malaspina, NVIT and College of the Rockies. It has five union reps from FPSE and the BCGEU, and it has senior bureaucrats from the Ministry of Advanced Education. It’s chaired by Ruth Wittenberg. We are trying to address the Trades problem identified by all parties as the most serious issue now facing the system. Though it’s unlikely that more funding will be provided in the short term, or that Economic Development will give ITA to AVED, there are opportunities to make things work better, and all of us are awaiting the Auditor-General’s report on how the ITA is carrying out its mandate. Few stakeholders seem to think it’s doing its job to benefit students seeking trades training in BC.

The next area that we’ve identified to work on is University Transfer. CNC is not the only institution suffering from low enrolment in UT areas, nor are just rural colleges affected. The government’s own policies – especially 25,000 FTEs before 2010 – are largely responsible. This initiative saw universities get their increased allocations early on, and a funding review gave them more money to do so. In effect, they took students away from colleges all over the province, and the Ministry has been refusing to allocate new FTEs to colleges whose utilization rates have been reduced by the policy designed to get more students into post-secondary education. The solution to this problem won’t be easy, either, but cutting programs and laying off faculty is very short-sighted.

In one area that I know about, the College’s numbers do not seem to add up. I’m also involved in a Joint Committee on Benefits Administration process to seek efficiencies, cost savings, and better use of our benefit dollars. In looking at Mercer’s numbers for CNC faculty between 2002-03 and 2006-07, the cost of faculty benefits has gone down. Here are the numbers:

	2002-03	2006-07
Life Insurance	150,964	117,606
STD	105,180	78,989
LTD	332,911	302,723
Extended Health	206,644	247,006
Dental	255,123	231,553
Total Difference	1,050,822	977,877 -72,945

CNC Faculty Benefits – source JCBA Mercer report, Jan. 2008

I know pension costs have risen, but I’d argue that increased costs are largely driven by the new administrative positions. At a cost of between $80,000 and $100,000, plus 35% benefits, for each new position, this is the largest avoidable cost driver.

Finally, there’s Agenda item # 10 from last June’s Board meeting – a document dated May 31, 2007, which set aside $1,979,600 as an Internally Restricted Fund Balance. Some of it was designated for specific purposes (trades equipment and completion of programs funded out of the one-time grant of 2006/07). The balance, $802,605, was to “be held as a contingency for current or future year’s operations.” The question is where is that money that could cover the cost of most of the projected deficit?

In Summary

A long-time member of the Faculty Association who is now on LTD was in my office last week. We were talking about CNC’s budget and the choices that have to be made. He asked me to tell you that we have entrusted you with the care of our institution. Presidents, Vice-presidents, Board Chairs and members come and go, but the employees and the communities are here to stay.

My recommendation is to send this budget and layoff plan back to the drawing board and direct the administration to work with us on finding other ways to mitigate the projected deficit next year. You can continue the adversarial cycle or try to live up to the College’s values and mission. The choice is yours and we will respond accordingly.

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Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008 04:00 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: owl on March 10 2008 5:07 AM

It is interesting that 15 years ago they were cutting administrators when the number of students were still rising and now they are top heavy with administrators while student numbers are dropping.

It would be interesting to know the number of staff each administrator is supervising, how that looks per department, and how that has changed over the years.

Some administrators have obviously fared better than others. I know with a relative degree of certainty that few would fare anywhere near as well in private industry.

Time for another major shake-up at the college from the looks of it. The place is really not much of a leader in anything anymore. No people with vision there.

Looks like the Board is lacking that characteristic as well.

We continue to have a college whose primary purpose appears to be to compete with UNBC. How long will it take for someone to realize that colleges are not universities and that they have their own very special role to play in the community, the province, and the country to educate people in more immediately useful practical skills?

The College suffers from an inferiority complex. Time to re-tool and become a competive force in the province in a few business, arts, technologies and trades programs. Create a select number of strong programs and become the leader in the province for those. Time to start back in where they left off 12 years ago.

Posted by: lunarbase on March 10 2008 6:28 AM

Wow ! I wish someone would author a report like that for the University. A friend of mine, after that re-org last year, lost 6 people in their department, to be replaced by Managers, Directors and a Acting Dean or something like that at the top. So 6 less people actually working, more wages and apparently a total loss in trust in Management along the way.

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on March 10 2008 7:42 AM

I never knew how much money the people at CNC were making. $80,000 to $100,000 per year plus 35% benefits!

Most of it public funds? Looks like the unions and staff had a real good thing going on in there. The unions get a raise, and then so do the staff, nice. Kind of like bargining your own pay raise on both sides of the table. Now they are both out of money!

Posted by: greenmountainman on March 10 2008 8:18 AM

Must be nice to get those kind of salary increases. Especially if you know what kind of goof-off's are getting them. Perhaps consider freezing the salary for upper class twits and increase the salary for the people who clean floors, serve food, and help to guide students into a career that will pay off in the end.
Be bold, start something new and show the people who do the work that they are not wasting time and effort carrying you on collective shoulders.

Posted by: lunarbase on March 10 2008 8:26 AM

All those people getting the $80,000 and more are not union but rather exempt positions. Take a look at the wage increases those people got. Union people can only dream of an increase like that !

Posted by: Andyfreeze on March 10 2008 9:02 AM

Owl got it right when he stated that "colleges are NOT universities".
There has always been a problem getting people to understand that.
From looking at some of these salaries,those in administration have trouble understanding that as well.
CNC is a very important part of the community and very much needed.
But it is looking like somebody needs to step back and start again if it is to survive.
Obviously continuing down the path it is on will only lead to it's demise.
Why is it that institutions of this nature have a habit of losing touch with reality and rotting from the inside out?
This can be fixed and it needs to be, and very soon.
CNC is far too important to to Prince George to have it suffering layoffs and cutbacks at a time when it is needed the most!
These issues are not new,but they have gotten worse as time goes on.
If CNC is top heavy,they need to look at that.
Trim where it needs to be trimmmed once and for all, and get on with the job!

Posted by: meisner on March 10 2008 9:09 AM

Please accept our apologies for the typos and spelling in this story, for some reason the system goes crazy when we load the info. We hope we have been able to correct it.
Thanks to those who pointed it out.

Posted by: billposer on March 10 2008 9:43 AM

Competition between CNC and UNBC is inefficient, but I don't think that eliminating CNC's university transfer programs would be a good idea. A lot of students find CNC a much more comfortable place to start post-secondary education. If their only choice were UNBC, a lot of them would either drop out or not go on to post-secondary education at all. CNC also has a much better record of serving the remote communities and reserves.

The CNC administrators whom I have worked with have been good people, but the growth in the size of the administration really is surprising. It sure does look top heavy.

The requirements that George Davison refers to for the Faculty Association to make a presentation to the Board are simply insane. They are demeaning to the FA and are hard to interpret as anything other than an unwillingness to communicate on the part of CNC. I was shocked by his description of this policy and by the rise in the number of grievances going to arbitration.

Posted by: owl on March 10 2008 10:31 AM

YDPC - "Looks like the unions and staff had a real good thing going on in there. The unions get a raise, and then so do the staff, nice. Kind of like bargining your own pay raise on both sides of the table."

There was a time when those who managed faculty could be paid less than faculty for the same credentials and experience. That is not to even mention the non-teaching time faculty enjoy during the summer. Looks like that is no longer the case except for one individual on that list who makes about $300 less per year than the top level faculty scale.

The real story is in the percentage increase over the 9 year spread shown. 24% for faculty to roughly twice that for the administrators shown. It would be interesting to see the scales of the non teaching unionized staff.

It would be one thing if the increase was to draw some key people who were able to keep th college out of the situation it is now finding itself in. Again, the draw down in students should not have come as a surprise.

Obviously these 100 grand a year people are not astute enough business people to understand how to run the college as a business to server their clients.

Their clients are not only those who have chosen to attend this year, whom they are probably serving reasonably well, but also those who may attend in a few years from now and are expecting to be able to do it close to home, and those in other parts of the province who want a top notch program they can go to in a community such as PG.

Forestry, mining, tourism, manufacturing, education, etc. etc. all have to deal with sustainability and transition. When an organization cannot manage that, especially when demographics are there to help you along to almost foresee the future, then there is something wrong.

Since the Board is the arm of the organization which has set itself apart to deal with that policy and direction setting, they are the first I hit with that responsibility and failure to properly handle that.

Senior administrative staff is the next, since in many ways they are repsonsible for keeping the Board informed of what is happening and proposing methods of dealing with it.

Anyone who takes the approach that the way to deal with it is to "bite the bullet" is not worth any salary and anyone on the Board who is willing to accept that should not be on the Board.

Time for the Chair of the Board to explain their inability to deal with this situation to the community that the "community college" plays an integral part in. Time to find a new Board and a new president and let some of the names that have been there for far too long retire gently and get some new blood in that have the experience needed to turn this thing around.

Posted by: tinyapplecork on March 10 2008 11:45 AM

WOW! Takes a brave President at wits end to resort to the public with this info. The Board must be very difficult to deal with at the moment. That's a shame. George Davison appears to be the only one between CNC and the Board. It is admirable that he has decided to set the record straight. All this time, as a student, I was under the impression the budget problems were due to lack of Provincial funding. Now I can see otherwise. The numbers speak for themselves. There sure are a lot of holes there. It is sickening to me. One of my instructors had students on a waitlist. The room was not full. The college had to turn them away "due to policy". What sense does that make?? Here were a handful of students attending for six weeks, books purchased, and allegedly their tuition paid, now booted out of a class due to administrative...um, BS.

I am not disputing the salaries. The increases to the pay scales are somewhat alarming however. As are the unusual number of admin hires. I wish George Davison had control of the Budget Committee! Perhaps he could bring some common business sense to this fiasco.

CNC is not in competition with UNBC. They never have been. But one could argue that the provincial govt has set the funding for post secondary education to favour universities hence, the perceived competition.
I agree with our President. The Board MUST reconsider its position!!!

BOARD: WHAT A MESS U CREATED!!!

Posted by: tinyapplecork on March 10 2008 11:50 AM

PS. Maybe the board would allow the first and second year business students the chance to analyse and come up with a sustainable budget proposal? After all, that is what we're being trained for right?

Posted by: Sammy8 on March 10 2008 2:24 PM

Re: Salary increases -- my understanding is that CNC receives a certain amount of $ from the government that's earmarked for this purpose -- if they don't use it, the government takes it back. It can't be used to help cover the deficit.

Posted by: camoose on March 10 2008 3:17 PM

Gee, Yama Poo I'm disappointed. You weren't the first post on this one. We all realize that unions don't know anything and management and the Libs are omnipotent and the only ones that know what's good for the people. If CNC would put it's tuition up some more we could have even less students but keep the same amount of administration.