Dive Brief:
- A proposed 19.3% raise for City College of San Francisco administrators was pulled Friday due to faculty outcry.
- Faculty at the troubled institution just had salaries slashed by 4%, and state-appointed special trustee Robert Agrella called the proposal "not appropriate," saying it landed on the agenda as the result of an error.
- Public comment on the proposal was set to end at 5:30 p.m. Friday, but the withdrawal occurred four hours prior. Vice chancellors and associate vice chancellors making between $104,000 and $183,000 would have made an additional $124,000 to $219,000 as a result of the raise.
Dive Insight:
Agrella was certainly right in his appraisal of the proposal. City College of San Francisco is in serious financial trouble and in danger of ceasing to be, so it's certainly not a good time to consider such a move. Still, faculty staged a planned protest Friday despite the withdrawal, with American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 President Alisa Messer calling the proposal "outrageous."
The college is in the process of trying to attract new administrators as a result of financial and other issues that have contributed to the institution's current decline, but many of those it wishes to attract are likely earning above market rate in the jobs they already have. Thus, according to Agrella, the actual proposal on the agenda was supposed to state that independent salary adjustments could be made for administrators "according to market conditions."