On July 10, the Faculty Association and two staff unions held a joint rally at the Board of Trustees Meeting with the common goal of obtaining cost of living adjustments to wages.

California School Employees Association Chapter 262 as well as CSEA 651 joined together with the FA with similar accusations of Mt. SAC having an overinflated reserves budget.

CSEA 262 is a Mt. SAC union represents confidential staff like non-managerial and non-teacher employees while CSEA 651 represents classified staff like electricians and HVAC technicians.

Rosa Asencio, 64, CSEA 262 President explained why the three unions held the joint rally. “So one of the main interests for us, for all three groups, is achieving the COLA that we didn’t receive for last year,” she said.

FA President Emily Woolery, 54, echoed Asencio’s explanation.

“…We’re all questioning the district’s bargaining practices in terms of delays, in terms of what we see are inflated estimates that don’t look accurate,” Woolery said. “And so since we’re all hearing the same thing, we decided, it’s always better to unite and come together.”

At 4:30 p.m., the three unions made public comment for an hour with common sentiments such as Mt. SAC administration having a “prioritization problem,” staff and faculty feeling unrecognized for their work and many anecdotes about not making ends meet from their salaries at Mt. SAC.

Also, at the Trustees meeting in support of the Mt. SAC union efforts included Christiane Salamat representing Senator Josh Newman and Faculty Association of California Community College Interim Executive Director Emily Haraldson.

Brandon Gillett, 28, CSEA 262 Vice President and lead negotiator, shared an analysis that CSEA did on Mt. SAC’s reserves and concluded that the district postures as being under-budget, but in reality, the reserves are healthy enough to pay faculty their COLA.

Gillett explains CSEA’s in-depth analysis on Mt. SAC’s reserves

Transcript

BRANDON GILLETT: Now, that being said, they are budgeting for an 18.5% reserve number– money that they have on hand. That is a very large, very healthy reserve. And even with that very large, very healthy reserve, our unit has done an analysis — a very in depth analysis — of the 22-23 actuals. We were able to determine that the district consistently over budgets on expenditures and under budgets on revenue, which makes it appear, just looking at the budget as if the district is budgeting a deficit.

GILLETT: But if you actually look at the money that has been year over year, they are not budgeting a deficit, they always have a huge positive variance at the end of the year and calculating in that positive variance — that positive variance that has been there year over year — The district is not budgeting a deficit even if they give the full retroactive COLA and full COLA to all groups.

Gillette said that CSEA’s analysis uses private information so the analysis cannot be made publicly available.

Through the ongoing dispute for COLA, Woolery remains hopeful.

“I hope the fact that some community members like the staff member from Senator Newman’s office as well as the interim executive director from FACCC, that is a faculty advocacy group,” she said. “I’m hoping that helps them see that others are watching Mt. SAC as well so that it will bring positive change for the employees.”

However, Gillette expressed discontent with the mounting amount of work staff are asked to do from the district without COLA. “We can’t pour from an empty cup and that’s what the district has been asking us to do,” he said. “They started asking us to pour more and more out since the pandemic and at this point, the cup is empty.”

SAC Media has contacted lead negotiator Sokha Song and President Martha Garcia for comment and will update the article as soon as a response is given.

The next Board of Trustees meeting will take place on Wednesday, August 14 where the conversation around COLA continues.