A letter from San Joaquin Delta College President Raul Rodriguez on school employee compensation

When you look at the salary data for the employees of Delta College, probably the most striking observation is that there are a number of faculty among the highest paid employees at the college (that is, making more than many of the administrators).

Although the San Joaquin Delta Community College District is what is referred to as a "low revenue" district, the faculty at Delta have historically been paid within the top quartile of faculty salaries in the California community colleges. Remember, each of the 72 community college districts in the state undergoes a separate collective bargaining process with their unions. There is no systemwide collective bargaining among the community colleges as there is in the UC and CSU systems.

One of the historical reasons frequently cited for the higher Delta salaries is that it is difficult to recruit top faculty to the Stockton area without an attractive monetary inducement. The faculty salaries at Delta are pegged to a comparison groups of 16 single college districts across the state. Our bargaining contract with the California Teacher's Association requires us to set our faculty salaries at the third quartile of these comparison districts. Since most of these districts are in Southern California, their salaries tend to be higher because of the higher cost of living, which then pushes our salaries up to remain at the third quartile.

There are several reasons for the group of faculty who turn up among the highest wage earners at the college. First, faculty teach a regular load of classes, which is fifteen units per semester.

However, if they choose, faculty can teach extra courses, called overloads, which provide them with extra compensation. The administration can put a limit on the number of overload courses a faculty member teaches. Often, this limit is not enforced and faculty are allowed to teach a large number of extra courses. This practice is often allowed when there are not sufficient adjunct faculty to teach in a discipline and the alternative would be to cancel classes.

There are many discipline areas where we constantly struggle to find sufficient faculty to teach all of the courses that we want to offer. Most of the faculty who are in the top salary group earned extra compensation through teaching overload classes during the regular academic year and during the summer session. One of the most popular ways for faculty to teach overload classes is through the online classes offered over the internet. This has been one of the major areas of enrollment growth for the college.

There are other ways for faculty to earn extra compensation. When faculty teach a large lecture class, they also receive extra salary based on what we call bonus units to compensate them for the large number of students in the class.

Several of the top faculty wage earners had "banked" extra compensation and cashed it in last year, which boosted their annual salary on a one-time basis. This is also true of several of the top classified staff wage earners. One of the classified staff who is listed as making over $90,000 in 2006, makes less than $60,000 per year in wages. However, he had accumulated a backlog of vacation days over the last 15 years and cashed in over $30,000 worth of vacation time, which boosted his salary on a one-time basis as well.

When I became president in 2002, one of the first actions that I took was to implement a cap on vacation accrual. At that time, classified and management employees at Delta could accrue unlimited unused vacation time. There were people who had accrued enough vacation time to take a year's vacation before they retired.

Enrollment is at an all-time high this year. We wouldn't be able to accommodate the large number of students that we serve without the hard work of our faculty.

Unlike other colleges where I have worked, Delta has a high productivity rate for faculty. Productivity has to do with the number of contact hours that faculty spend with students. What it means for Delta is that we pay our faculty well, but that they serve more students than faculty at other colleges, which translates into higher revenue for the college.

Even though it appears strange to see a faculty member make $170,000 per year or more, that faculty member brings in far more in revenue to the district than their own salary.