The Academic Senate continued the process of removing itself from the Non-Teaching Compensation Committee (NTCC) at their meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

Last spring, the NTCC was tasked with finding $125,000 in savings as part of budget cuts announced by former Superintendent-President Utpal Goswami. Ultimately, the committee found $111,360.53 in savings.

“That work opened a boondoggle of very painful, hard work for the NTCC that resulted in several of the NTCC members publicly resigning,” Academic Senate President Raeanne Napoleon said.

The NTCC convened to determine “non-teaching compensation” for faculty members.

Compensation has been provided through “leadership stipends,” which are assigned to a variety of non-coaching or Department Chair positions assigned to faculty.

“As Senate President, I was also struggling with being charged with chairing this committee as someone who deals with curriculum, policy, college planning and shared governance,” Napoleon said. “Faculty compensation should be handled elsewhere.”

The Senate created a summer work group with specific charges to go through the issues. In the fall, recommendations were made to “jettison any formal involvement to NTCC and re-affirm that compensation is not part of ‘ten plus one’ and thus not the purview of the Academic Senate at Santa Barbara City College.”

The Academic Senate aims to promote participation in City College’s decision making in academic and professional matters, which are known as the “ten plus one.”

Robin Goodnough, the representative for the School of Modern Languages/English as a Second Language, raised additional concerns about whether the process is impartial.

“Because it’s a committee that’s run by the Senate President, but has deans on it as well, that it seems to be a sort of secretive. . . negotiation process that is handled outside of official negotiations,” she said. “It’s not considered universally at all as an impartial and helpful process to all faculty leadership.”

The summer work group’s recommendations will be set for a future meeting where it will go over Administrative Procedure 7210, which outlines the makeup of the NTCC.

Napoleon also recognized in her president’s report that Sally Saenger was awarded the Dean Murakami Advocate of the Year Award by the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC).

Saenger is the president of Faculty Association Noncredit and is on the credit Faculty Association Board. She will receive the award at FACCC’s Advocacy and Policy Conference held in Sacramento in March.

Additionally, the senate confirmed with a unanimous vote that they will continue to hold meetings over Zoom for the next 30 days.

The Academic Senate will reconvene on Wednesday, Feb. 16.

Correction: Feb. 12, 2022 

The initial publishing of this article stated that Sally Saenger was the vice president at the School of Extended Learning and has been corrected to reflect Saenger’s current positions at City College.