Friday, October 23, 2015

SOCCCD's "$200K Club" (according to Transparent California, 2014)

Undisputed champ
     As you know, Transparent California (run by the California Policy Center, a right-wing think tank) provides salary data regarding state employees, including community college employees. I'm going to assume that these data are accurate. (Are they?)
     The site for “All … salaries for South Orange Community College District” employees, 2014, is here:
     2014 SOCCCD employee salaries
     At this site, individual salaries are presented in order, starting with the highest (the Chancellor @ $401,949.52) and ending with the lowest (student aids, et al.).
     By my count, sixty-seven SOCCCD employees are in the “200 Club”—i.e., those making $200K or more. (That some includes benefits, which are very significant.)
     42 of the 67 are administrators. No surprise there.
     25 of the 67 are instructors. Golly.
     According to the district’s Fast Facts, the SOCCCD has 374 full-time faculty. The number has likely increased since that was printed. Let's round it up to 400. 25 divided into 400 is .0625. That is, these 25 faculty represent about 6 percent of full-time faculty.
     So let's not overreact. The Twenty-Five are a surprising group, that's for sure; but they're only six percent.

Here are the 25 instructors [names not included]:

$302K/$229K
CIS [Business] Instructor - $253,535.19 (IVC)
CIM [Business] Instructor/Lab Instructor - $235,448.98 (Saddleback)
Spanish Instructor - $231,001.91 (Saddleback)
Counselor - $228,642.68 (IVC)
CIS [Business] Instructor - $227,803.50 (IVC)
Business Instructor - $220,176.37 (Saddleback)
Real Estate [Business] Instructor - $219,958.30 (Saddleback)
Anthropology Instructor - $219,672.08 (IVC)
Spanish Instructor - $219,598.81 (Saddleback)
English Composition Instructor* - $216,740.37 (Saddleback)
Philosophy Instructor* - $216,692.37 (Saddleback)
Counselor - $213,588.68 (Saddleback)
Mathematics Instructor - $210,145.28 (Saddleback)
Psychology Instructor - $208,664.29 (Saddleback)
Kines. Inst./Head Football Ch/Golf Ch - $208,655.05 (Saddleback)
$231k
Nursing Instructor (Fund/Med-Surg) - $206,973.29 (Saddleback)
Economics Instructor** - $206,481.23 (Saddleback)
Kinesiology Instructor - $205,941.00 (Saddleback)
Physics/Astronomy Instructor - $205,596.10 (Saddleback)
CIM [Business] Instructor - $205,309.60 (Saddleback)
Biology Instructor - $204,239.00 (IVC)
Kines. Inst./Asst Football Ch/Golf Ch - $201,640.09 (Saddleback)
Counselor - $201,317.94 (IVC)
Counselor (Generalist) - $201,018.84 (IVC)
English Composition Instructor - $200,131.47 (Saddleback)

Can I have your autograph?
PATTERNS:
   Six Business instructors
   Four Counselors (three at IVC)
   Three Kinesiology instructors (all at Saddleback)
   Two Spanish instructors (both at Saddleback)
   Two English Composition instructors (both at Saddleback)
   One Gensler**
   The undisputed faculty salary champ is a business instructor at IVC. Nevertheless, only seven of The Twenty-five are at IVC; eighteen are at Saddleback College.

*Union Old Guardsters
**Former Dean of Humanities and Languages, IVC

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some of these "other" pay categories seem very difficult to explain. Certainly some of the high salaries can be explained by many, many years of service and continued overload pay (summer work for example). But, some of the names on this list are not that senior. I just want someone to show some transparency. If you check back a few years, some of these people consistently are making 60-70K over their regular salaries. Some of these relatively newer instructors are making more than the deans! How is this possible? Over the years, this is hundreds of thousands of dollars. This just seems beyond reasonable. Doesn't the board want to pay attention to this? I cannot imagine that they want tax payer dollars spent on this excess. Sure, people can make an extra 20K teaching an overload class or two and teaching during the summer. And that is everyone's own prerogative. But, 40K, 60k, 70k? Tell me these people's teaching isn't suffering...

Anonymous said...

"Tell me these people's teaching isn't suffering..."
--Yeah, that's the issue.

Anonymous said...

One of our IVC counselors is making the same amount of money as Linda Fontanilla...what?!??

Anonymous said...

Karima made almost $200k before Benes. Arlene Elseroad (A&R), $182k

Anonymous said...

Sorry for the duplicate post. There are also several gross earners in PE. Check them out. Did you know that coach assistant student aids start at $25/hr?

Anonymous said...

Our student aids get paid 10 or 12 dollars an hour in our area - not 25.

Anonymous said...

Howard Gensler makes $200 k with beneifits ?!?

Anonymous said...

I should clarify: our area is not PE. Perhaps this is why we can't hire more people or pay the ones we have more money. How can anyone make in "extra" what is a full salary for most?

Anonymous said...

Last fall the total value of stipends (both categorical and general fund) at IVC totaled over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS. Accountability? If you are talking categorical- there is NONE. But even GF ones are being to be pretty weak. One bullet point on a stipend actually says: maintain good working relationships with colleagues. Hold the phones- WE ARE PAYING HIM EXTRA FOR THAT?! Why yes, yes we are.

Anonymous said...

Where is the board on issues like this? Where is the press (beyond DtB)? This is juicy and rancid together, especially if you start really poking around. Rancid juice.

Anonymous said...

The 2015 $200K Club will increase as faculty get a 6+3+3 raise. Why isn't that included in the post?

Roy Bauer said...

At least on Transparent California, the latest data are from 2014. Hence, as i imply at the start, these data reflect the recent past, not the present.
Further, I do not believe that there is something wrong with a 200+ faculty salary per se, although I do think some of these salaries--e.g., in the case of newer employees and other curious cases--should be looked into. --RB

Anonymous said...

I take one Bob at $200k over any two Administrators (or the Pres and 3 VP's) any day!

Anonymous said...

This, along with the preponderance of telling comments in the most recent climate survey, all the favoratism, nepotism and we have one very ugly, stinking situation.

Anonymous said...

These are the kinds of things, among others, that prompted the "radicalization" of the Board years back and a swing to an extreme position. I don't think anyone would like to return to those dark times, which lasted years, and opened the doors for all kinds of unsavory characters to be hired, presumably to "clean house."

Some of the high faculty salaries are due, no doubt, to overload and summer pay, plus extra duty days, stipends, etc. At SOCCCD, there's a 10 LHE max per semester limit for overload and no limit for summer. At some point, I believe, the quality of instruction can suffer when an individual is teaching so many classes. Some may be able to do a wonderful job teaching lots of classes, but it does take an extraordinary effort to do so while assigning the same amount of written assignments. I just hope this information will not be "misused," as it was in the past, to declare war on faculty and impose draconian measures. History does, some times, repeat itself.

Roy Bauer said...

As one contemplates the history of our district, one finds that the board of 1996-8 was perhaps the worst, though these trustees' excesses were not a response to high faculty salaries. On the contrary, it would be fair to say that the deal that the FA Old Guard (Runyan, Channing, MacMillan, Woodward, et al.) made with Frogue and Williams and Co. was: do what you like, as long as you support high salaries for (especially senior) faculty. That board grew worse, in some ways, with the addition of Wagner and Padberg in 1998--also engineered by the FA (using the phony anti-airport issue).
Another notorious era was the 1980s and the hire of Larry Stevens as Chancellor. See 1982: The district hires Larry Stevens and learns to regret it. See also socccd saga
Arguably, the very first boards, dominated by Hans Vogel, were pretty bad. They were dominated by those sympathetic to the John Birch Society (note the naming of the Library after James Utt, that notorious lunatic).

Anonymous said...

Well...I think, originally, the "old guard" supported a board that would be in favor of higher faculty salaries, and the strategy was to persuade the voters that a proposed "same sex" benefit for faculty would take away monies for higher salaries. I don't think anyone disputes that a salary increase was needed. Previous negotiations had not gone well. But once the new Board majority was in charge, and influenced by Raghu, then the issue of overly compensated faculty, and faculty nepotism, became a real one, if you recall. Remember that Raghu was against higher salaries for faculty, even though he was a member of the $200,000 club or whatever it was called then, before Transparent California came to be. Raghu was able to convince the new Board that faculty were well paid, greedy, and lazy. Some of the Board members bought into that narrative and negotiations stalled again.

Roy Bauer said...

1:24, you should take a look at the fliers that were actually sent to voters (Republican voters, as I recall). Without doubt, the fliers were appealing to voter homophobia, not a voter fear that "a 'same sex' benefit...would take away monies for higher salaries." See: HERE.

Anonymous said...

That flier and that campaign is so indefensible - and I am both surprised and not surprised that there are still enough pathetic apologists around to try and spin it some other way. Shame on you!

Anonymous said...

In truth, you all should have an issue if faculty "per se" are making well over $200,000.00 and a largely due to summer overload. I find it disgusting that there are classified employees and part time faculty in Student Services who can barely walk out the door at the end of the day due to sheer Fall Registration exhaustion (in July and August) and yet there are a few faculty in the same building raking in huge amounts of cash and are allowed to take full advantage of a system that allows for it to continue. If our faculty do indeed demand equity and fairness as they often state, you should indeed demand it in this case unless there is a concern that it might affect your wallets and purses as well. Classified and Part Time faculty recognize they do not make the same salaries but they do expect a level playing field. Currently, this does not exist in Student Services and management allows it.

Anonymous said...

My point, 10:11, is that these cases (i.e., faculty salaries over 200K) differ in important ways. Some reflect boondoggling and scammery. Others do not, though I do worry (as do others) that those who teach lots of extra courses cannot do justice to them. --RB

Anonymous said...

One big complaint I hear from faculty and staff... underpaid yet I hear people complain because some people work hard and take on extra commitments.
I am happy for those who make the extra money. They have earned it. Big pain in the butt being on committees and dealing with all the extra headaches.

Anonymous said...

11:48 I agree many who work hard and take on extra committee work and commitments likely do deserve the extra money. This seems a non issue in regards to this discussion since classified, part faculty and full time faculty generally work hard, take on extra committee work and commitments beyond the norms of their position. These classified and part time faculty folks never see the extra pay for that extra effort for this college---while others are clearly taking in well beyond mere "extra pay."

Anonymous said...

Faculty receiving a 12% COLA during a three year period. Plus a base raise of about 7.5%
Wow

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...