Old Business

Bargaining

We started this process two years ago by surveying members in February and March of 2023 about bargaining priorities. The Bargaining Commission then began having conversations in April and May of 2023, and the bargainers first went to the table in October of 2023. It has been a long process, but we are confident in the final results. We held three informational sessions for faculty to look over the package, and we also had an overview summary document that was sent out to those who requested it via personal email. We are currently beginning the work of making the edits to the Master Contract so that it can be printed before July 1.

Some of the highlights from this bargain include increases to our salary scale in 2025 and 2026, a new adjunct salary scale, increased stipends for Flex classes, department chairs, program leads, allied health program directors, and coaches, increases to the early retirement notification incentive, streamlined club advisor language, the addition of bereavement leave for adjuncts with longevity status or higher, new language on artificial intelligence, recording of meetings, security camera use, PFML, and independent study vs. directed self-study, revamped student evaluations, a revamped classroom observation form, and a new student-facing document for explaining the student concerns process.

There are many people to thank who were part of this process. Thank you to the bargainers who spent countless hours at the table as well as countless hours doing prep work here at WEA. Each of them brought much-needed perspectives and different skills to the table. We are also incredibly grateful to the Bargaining Commission and our AHE Senate for their assistance during the process. We were able to confidently represent the needs and wishes of our members because we knew you all were always available to act as an honest sounding board. We also appreciate all of the “thank yous” and other encouraging emails, texts, notes, etc. that we received along the way. The support of our members helped sustain us through this long process.  

We also want to give a special thanks to some of the specific groups that we met with throughout this process. Those groups would include Counselors, Librarians, club advisors, and Corrections faculty. Your insights into your areas gave us the specifics we needed to represent you at the table. We are grateful for your time, your input, your questions, and your guidance.

We want to thank everyone who has gone to the table in the past. Many of you are folks that we likely called up at some point to ask about the history or the intent of a particular section of the contract. Your willingness to share your institutional knowledge, along with the notes you had from prior bargains, was appreciated.  

Lastly, we want to thank our AHE President, Bev Daily, for keeping us focused and on track throughout this process. Her guidance, encouragement, and support were invaluable. It takes a seasoned leader who has been to the table herself to know when her team, and more specifically when her lead bargainer, needed a pat on the back, and when he needed a kick in the ass. We owe Bev a tremendous amount of gratitude for everything she did for us as a team throughout this process.

The contract will stay between AHE and the Community Colleges of Spokane because that is how our district is listed with the state as well as with PERC (Public Employees Relations Commission). This may change in the future, and we are also working on some strategic ways to clarify and avoid confusion within the contract. 

Communications

Please send your personal emails to your AHE VP if you have not yet done so. Please email them from your personal email to (jfranklincpa@gmail.com; robdeyo@hotmail.com; or jasoneggerman@gmail.com). 

We have also been looking into utilizing the Hustle program which we have access to through WEA.

AHE’s communication will be moving outside of the Spokane College’s email system, so please get us your information. We promise that we will not spam you with lots of information, but we need to be able to connect with you periodically.

WEA Grant

We have two upcoming events that AHE members can attend. WEA members are invited to attend Wellpinit’s upcoming Pow Wow. There will also be a family day you will be able to attend. The events will be in May. Please watch for flyers for both of these events and attend if you are able. You are welcome to bring family members to these events as well. 

Contract Ratification

The master contract ratification vote has been completed. Faculty voted to ratify the contract with over 99% voting in favor of ratification. The Board of Trustees will complete their vote to approve the new contract at their upcoming meeting next week.

Legislative Update

We are watching the budget conversations in Olympia closely. Spokane Colleges is currently completing a 2% budget reduction exercise. WEA is still working in Olympia to try to limit any cuts, but we won’t know for sure until the budget is finalized this spring.

The district has worked hard to right-size the district managed costs so that it reflects actual costs. There are proposed changes to scale back several areas under District Managed Costs. This includes scaling back some trainings, IT requests, among others.

AHE is arguing that any cuts that happen should not affect instruction. We need to maintain all of our programs and classes in order to maintain quality instruction and FTEs. 

We hopefully will not be impacted by furloughs because that would impact our contract and would also be very difficult for instruction in most areas. 

There was a question about I-732 COLAs. I-732 is a state law that requires COLAs based on the CPI. We could, theoretically, go to the table to discuss changes to COLAs, but that would require us to open the contract and negotiate how to handle that. This is very unlikely, so at this point, we anticipate the COLAs being applied directly to our salary schedules as is required in the new contract..

The district will save money, eventually, when the Lodge remodel at SFCC is finished and a portion of district administration moves there. A smaller portion of district administration will be moving to SCC, likely in Building 15. These moves are still a couple of years away.

New Business

Dear Colleague Letter

There have been listening sessions with the chancellor regarding this. The district and both colleges believe that we are already operating within what was said in the letter. Both colleges work hard to support all students in their education.

Our chancellor and presidents work diligently to vet any information they hear and make sure they fully understand it before communicating it. Administration is paying attention to any changes that come up and are working diligently to stay on top of any changes coming from the federal or state levels and will make decisions based only on factual information that they have received.

District Reorganization

There are currently some changes and adjustments to the reorganization. The chancellor is re-examining the decisions he made and will likely be making some changes to help our district function more efficiently and effectively.

Calendar committee

The calendar committee has representatives from multiple areas from both campuses. The faculty side has met to develop a shared understanding of how the calendar works and put together goals for the committee. The calendar committee is Bev Daily, Jason Eggerman, Michelle Grover, Jaye Hopkins, David Larson, and Natasha Volkmann. Efforts were made to ensure representation from broad areas (CTE, Science, Allied Health, Liberal Arts, etc.)

There is a list of guiding principles that the committee uses to make these decisions. For example, we want to have spring break between winter and spring quarters, which then makes it impossible for our spring break to line up with K-12 (we don’t want to have a week or two of class in spring and then have spring break). 

The committee is working on AY 2027-2028 through AY 2031-2032.

Lots of factors are considered including holidays (and days off because of holidays), days of instruction, faculty workdays, and student need. 

You are welcome to ask Jason any questions or share any suggestions with him regarding the future calendars.

Elections Committee

The following positions will be up for election this year: President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Adjunct Representative. The call for nominations will come out in April. Everyone nominated will be asked to submit a paragraph bio.

You can nominate yourself or a colleague. You can submit your nominations for any of the positions to Scott Satake.

All of the duties for each position are listed in the bylaws on the AHE website.

Please reach out to anybody on the executive board if you have questions about the responsibilities of the positions.

The president position is a 100% release time. The VPs all have a 33% release time. The other positions do not have release time.

All of the positions are critical to the functioning of our organization. Our current president and treasurer are not running again for their positions.

More details about elections and how AHE functions can be found under our constitution and bylaws on our website.

President’s and Vice Presidents’ Reports

AHE President Bev Daily:

We are working on developing some consistency and collective information across both campuses related to club advisors.

SCC VP Jason Eggerman:  

The VPI screening committee has continued their work. Human Resources worked hard to broaden the pool of applicants, and the committee had roughly 25 applications that were forwarded to them for review. Human Resources reports that the committee is scheduling Zoom interviews with roughly 8 to 10 candidates in the coming weeks. 

President Martin will be holding listening sessions with the Arts and Sciences division this week to discuss the pros and cons of remaining as one division or separating into two divisions. Faculty are encouraged to attend, share their perspective, and ask questions. 

Department chair elections are coming up next quarter for some departments. As was the case in prior years, we have developed a mutually agreed-upon timeline with administration for dates in the election process. We would expect that this timeline should be shared out by Deans or Office Managers in the next week or two, or at the very latest by early April. For those interested, the training for Department Chairs will occur on May 30th. The location and time are still TBD, but May 30th will be the date for the Department Chair training. 

SCC Extension VP Rob Deyo:

Make sure you have completed your trainings and professional summaries before the end of the year. You can complete all of these now. You need to have these completed in order to receive step advancement. Your professional summaries need to be completed every year, while your four trainings need to be completed within your two-year window. If you are a new faculty in your second year you still need to do in-person trainings, while all other faculty can complete their training online. New faculty in their first year, according to our new contract, will be able to do online trainings. Please check OTHRS to see the current status of your trainings. Contact Bev if there is a training you have completed but is not showing up in OTHRS. Your annual professional summary reports should be about professional development work you have completed (they are not about service or other work completed directly for your job).

SFCC VP Jackie Franklin:  

If you are interested in running for a position like department chair, please talk to the department chair in your area to understand what their work is like.

Please do not put off your trainings. Please complete your trainings right away so that if anything does not post on OTHRS we can get it taken care of early without any issues. There may be mistakes since HR is dealing with multiple systems, so please check OTHRS.

Adjunct Representative Lena Lopez Schindler:

Watch for a letter from Lena for opportunities for adjuncts to participate in professional development at the TLC at SCC or the CETL at SFCC. You will earn a stipend for participating in any of the synchronous sessions (you don’t receive a stipend if you complete the asynchronous activities).