Dear Members,
Funding our CCSF is an ongoing process on a number of fronts. We have several pieces of news to report on the budget front. There’s additional money coming in, and your bargaining team will be calling the District back to the bargaining table. We do not yet have a schedule for those negotiations.
The Mayor and the Supervisors have agreed on a budget for 2021-2022 that includes a $1 million contribution to the Workforce Education Recovery Fund (WERF). City leaders also allocated an additional $500 thousand from last year’s budget to CCSF. The bulk of these funds will be for preserving courses and student services at CCSF.
$1.5 million is obviously not enough, but it is an important step forward in City leaders recognizing the viability of using WERF to provide CCSF with the local funding it requires to meet the needs of San Francisco’s residents.
When it comes to K-12, city leaders have stepped up and recognized that the state’s chronic under-funding of public education is a problem. The Public Education Enrichment Fund (PEEF), established in 2004 and extended in 2014, ensures that San Francisco’s general fund be used to fill in the gap between what the State provides and our City needs. Because of this funding, every SFUSD student has access to a library, a nurse, and a host of other resources that would be otherwise unavailable.
The gap in the funding the state provides CCSF is $35.6-$43 million less per year than what the college needs in order to meet the demand for classes and programs in our San Francisco communities.
All of the work you have done to stand with your fellow faculty and speak up for your job, your college, and your students has pushed City leaders to create WERF and begin contributing to it. So let’s keep it up until the Mayor and the Supervisors make the investment that our city and its residents deserve.
At the same time, we continue to work with our state and federal partners to push for as much funding as possible for not only CCSF, but our community college systems as a whole.
Our state affiliate, the California Federation of Teachers, has made substantial and exciting progress on this front in pushing California’s Governor and legislators to make increased investments in education. In the agreed upon state budget, the cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Community College apportionments is 5.07%, which represents about $6 million dollars in additional revenue for CCSF ongoing through the end of hold harmless. Hold harmless has also been extended to 2024/25, which provides for one more year of relief before enrollment numbers will impact our revenue.
While the extension of hold harmless provides CCSF with stability, there is still much work to do to correct this harmful formula and bring true stability to Community College funding. Additionally, the impacts of class cuts and then COVID on our enrollment must be repaired to ensure San Franciscans have the access they need to higher education. Your union is launching a multimedia enrollment campaign to ensure that our community knows of the breadth of opportunities our college offers. Stay tuned for more details on this.
In Solidarity,
TEAM AFT
How you can help now:
If you live in San Francisco, you should have received by now a postcard from City College encouraging folks to register for fall classes.
In addition to the mailing, faculty volunteers are distributing another 10,000 cards to transit stops, cafes, laundromats, and libraries. If you would like to pick up one or more packets of 100 cards to distribute, please meet us at Dolores Park near the Mexico Liberty Bell at Dolores and 19th Street this Sunday, July 18, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
If you can’t make it on Sunday, please contact Leslie Simon at simscha@sbcglobal.net, so she can arrange to deliver some packets to you.
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