Labor conflict is really about a crisis of leadership at Delta College

Lodi News-Sentinel, May 17, 2008.

We know the public is mostly interested in the quality of education available to Delta College students. The public also wants to see that the bond money they voted for in 2004 is spent wisely and that a fair number of the promises from district leadership are kept. These are the things the public should be interested in. Delta teachers care deeply about these issues, too.

In fact, we regret the energy we've had to spend over the last year in trying to get the district leadership to bargain in good faith. District negotiators have offered us 1 percent over three years — even though other employee groups have received 2.5 percent raise. Other districts in the state have shared this year's 4.53 percent cost of living adjustment (COLA) with their faculty and staff.

The Delta trustees refusal to share even a significant portion of the COLA with faculty is puzzling since Delta College teachers have been one of the most productive faculties in the entire California College system. We have consistently maintained student/teacher ratios in the high thirties, 20 percent or more above statewide averages. High class sizes generate more income for the college. The result for the college over this period has been record or near record income and record reserves.

Why would a college in excellent financial shape-with admittedly a couple of lean budget years ahead — deliberately snub a highly productive faculty? It is a puzzlement. With rising food, gasoline, and medical costs eroding teacher-buying power, the Board of Trustees has offered us a small fraction of the salary increase offered to other employee groups. We can't see how fomenting conflict with a productive faculty could be in the best interests of the college.

However, faculty conflicts with the board and administration are not simply over salary and benefits. We urge you to review carefully the performance of the Delta Trustee on a number of issues:

• Management of the Bond. Some trustees have tried to be good stewards of public funds — Ted Simas, for example. We also know that some outside consultants are necessary in a large and far-flung building program like the one the board promised voters. But tens of millions of dollars have been wasted on bond project consultants who were poorly supervised and whose productivity-beyond racking up bill-able hours-was painfully meager. After four years, the board has done more scaling back of promises than building to meet them.

• Neglect of the Colleges Building and Grounds. Both the board and top administrators have ignored issues of campus maintenance and widespread vandalism. For years, the grounds of the college were an oasis in an urban setting. Unfortunately, years of neglect have diminished the beauty of the grounds. Graffiti is common on campus and so is vandalism, especially in bathrooms and stairwells. Recently, one of our campus police officers, with $500 in seed money from the teachers' union, convinced President Rodriguez to support a secret witness reward program as part of an anti-vandalism program. We applaud the officer for going the extra mile to protect the college physical plant and President Rodriguez for supporting him. But we wonder about the drift that allowed tens of thousands of dollars to be wasted over the last four years.

• Lack of Professionalism. This spring, the chairman of the accreditation team visiting our campus admonished the Trustees to develop an ethics policy for themselves and then follow it. The trustees have violated the Brown Act on three or four occasions and recently took Brown Act training to help them comply with the law. The Brown Act essentially requires the trustees to make decisions during regularly scheduled and recorded meetings, so the press and the public can monitor their activities. One of our trustees explained that his failure to include a $2.5 million land deal in a required financial disclosure was an honest memory lapse because he was filling out the form in his pick-up outside the county registrar's office. We don't question this trustee's honesty. But we hope voters will question his casualness about his financial disclosure obligations.

Of course, we would appreciate public support for our struggle to get a fair contract from the college district. But people have told us that might be a hard sell. We have more confidence that the public cares about the welfare of Delta College and the performance of the board of trustees charged with its care.

--SJDCTA