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Faculty seek their place in "privatized" Community College of Philadelphia
CCP staff and faculty - mired in a deadlocked contract battle - are threatening to interfere with the school's re-accreditation process. Meanwhile, the college president is hinting at a shift toward outsourcing.
Faculty seek their place in "privatized" Community College of Philadelphia
A couple weeks ago, Community College of Philadelphia President Stephen M. Curtis got up in front of a national conference of his peers and proudly told them, "My own college behaves much more like a private college these days than a public." What does that privatization mean, exactly? Turns out that the college, whose $120 million 2010-'11 operating budget ballooned 83 percent in the last 13 years, is expected to get two-thirds of its revenue from tuition next year as state and city contributions shrink. Also, like private colleges with their deep-pocketed individual donors, CCP has begun its own fundraising efforts, recently wrapping up a $10 million donation push. And finally, Curtis told the conference, he wants to outsource stuff like cleaning services and child care.
Those might sound, to the trained ear, like fighting words, given that cleaning services — along with building maintenance, computer repair and full-time and part-time faculty — are among the 1,300 unionized CCP employees currently locked in a stalemate with the college over contract negotiations. The American Federation of Teachers Local 2026 has been pushing back on the college's "best and final offer" of a 10.5 percent raise over five years, contingent on state and city funding remaining within 2 percent of what it is now; unless Gov. Corbett has an uncharacteristic fit of generosity, the raise is more likely to be 1.5 percent, says union co-president John Braxton. "The contract they want us to sign has huge increases in medical costs, that would more than outweigh the 1.5 percent pay increase. It guarantees our medical costs would go up, but makes no guarantee we would be able to pay for them."
The union is looking at some creative ways to push back, among them refusing to cooperate with the Middle States Accreditation process, a once-in-10-years review that is critical to maintaining the college's standing, Braxton says. He says the union already successfully deterred Sen. Bob Casey from coming to speak at the college after a leafleting campaign began.
Still, as Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky pointed out a few weeks ago, the health care cost increases — maxed out at a $900 per-family deductible — don't sound "huge" to most of us, who already pay plenty into our health insurance plans through employee contributions or deductibles. But Braxton counters: "We have staff that qualify for food stamps" — the same housekeeping workers that Curtis would like to outsource. Braxton points out that administrative costs are rising, from 14 percent of salary expenditures to 21 percent — although Curtis' $275,000 salary is still relatively modest compared to those of the private university presidents he apparently hopes to emulate.
Polaneczky's column was a turd. I wrote a letter to the editor but somehow missed that they'd called me to print it. Aargh! Health insurance is part of a total compensation package and thus can't be evaluated absent salary data. . . which her lazy, resentful column failed to mention whatsoever. A $900 increase in deductible might look somehow like employees "contributing" more, but it's really just a backdoor pay cut.
Of course, the most galling part of her column is the one-two punch of calling a 10.5 percent pay increase over five years "a whopper of a raise" (that's a little over 3$ annually, just keeping up with inflation!) before going on to defend the school president's $275,000 salary.— jkudler- Polaneczky's column was a turd. I wrote a letter to the editor but somehow missed that they'd called me to print it. Aargh! Health insurance is part of a total compensation package and thus can't be evaluated absent salary data. . . which her lazy, resentful column failed to mention whatsoever. A $900 increase in deductible might look somehow like employees "contributing" more, but it's really just a backdoor pay cut. Of course, the most galling part of her column is the one-two punch of calling a 10.5 percent pay increase over five years "a whopper of a raise" (that's a little over 3$ annually, just keeping up with inflation!) before going on to defend the school president's $275,000 salary. (HTML deleted)— jkudler
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