Allegedly under pressure from a group of angry faculty members, the St. Louis Community College Board of Trustees voted in July not to extend Chancellor Myrtle E.B. Dorsey’s contract past June 2014.
Local media gave plenty of attention to faculty members who sharply criticized Dorsey’s handling of a professional development day and a horrific student assault on the Meramec campus.
Yet, money was completely absent from the public conversation.
In fact, these opposing faculty members first started rallying together when Dorsey questioned the college’s overload-pay procedure. Overload pay is the amount of money that faculty members earn above their base pay for teaching extra classes or taking on extra projects.
The normal teaching load for full-time faculty at the college is 15 credit hours per semester or 30 credit hours per academic year, according to college policy.
The maximum number of overload credit hours a faculty member can take on is 18 credit hours per academic year, the policy states. Overload compensation for professors at the college is $1,069 per credit hour. This overload pay schedule can launch faculty salaries into the six-digit range.
Take Don Cusumano, department chair of psychology at the Forest Park campus. He maxed out his overload pay in the 2012-2013 year by teaching 10 extra credit hours in fall 2012 and eight credit hours in spring 2013, according to expense records documented in Board of Trustees meeting minutes. By doing so, he added $19,240 to his $95,600 salary. In the summer of 2012, he earned another $9,530 from extra projects and classes.
Cusumano was paid $3,200 to teach a three-hour, entry-level psychology class, for which an adjunct professor would get paid about $1,200.
As a department chair, Cusumano also receives six credit hours of “release time,” or time compensated at the regular pay rate to perform administrative duties and attend professional development programs. Basically he is given two fewer courses to teach so he can tend to his administrative responsibilities. Yet, this past academic year he picked up 18 credit hours in overload courses.
Cusumano is not the only department chair who spends his release time teaching classes. Many department chairs at Forest Park use those six hours, which are intended for administrative time, to pick up more classes and earn overload pay.
Dorsey budgets for overload
After Dorsey arrived as chancellor in the summer of 2011, she saw that the college was paying for overload expenses with funds meant for “lapsed salaries.” These are funds left over from unfilled positions and recent retirements. In fall 2011, she put a stop to that practice on all campuses.
Prior to her actions, overload expenses were not budgeted. Any funds from open positions were used to cover overload salaries at the end of each fiscal year.
Dorsey forced the college’s campuses to budget for overload, rather than pulling from a “slush fund” at the end of the fiscal year without knowing how much the expense might be in advance.
The St. Louis American asked the college for overload pay records and “total compensation” reports of all faculty members and employees, through a Sunshine Law information request. The college said they would charge The American $320 for the information.
However, according to expense records in the board minutes, the total cost for overload courses and a few other additional assignments for full-time faculty members was $1.84 million in the spring and $1.8 million in the fall 2012.
According to the May 2013 finance report to the board, the college has reduced part-time and overload salaries by $2.1 million, compared to the 2011-2012 academic year, under Dorsey’s leadership.
Opposition and extra pay
One of Dorsey’s most fervent critics, who has been on the frontlines in all the attempts to oust her, is Cindy Campbell, a physical education teacher at the Florissant Valley campus and faculty union vice president of the Junior College District National Education Association (JCD-NEA).
Campbell’s contract salary was $77,750 in 2012-2013. She added $19,600 to her salary through overload pay during the academic year. And in summer 2012, she added another $17,100. Through overload pay and extra work hours, she earned an extra $36,700 for the year – nearly a 50 percent increase in her salary.
For several months, Campbell has fought fiercely against Dorsey, along with Doug Hurst, president of the JCD-NEA. At a spring JCD-NEA forum, 87.7 percent of 114 faculty members agreed to vote “no confidence” in Dorsey at the May 16 Board of Trustees meeting.
However, Board of Trustees Vice Chair Craig Larson told association leaders that the vote didn’t represent the voice of 1,800 employees, including about 500 full-time professors and hundreds of adjuncts, according to a report in The Montage, the student newspaper for the Meramec campus. Larson voted in favor of extending Dorsey’s contract, along with trustees Doris Graham and Melissa Hattman.
In a closed executive session in July, the motion to extend Dorsey’s contract failed on the 3-3 vote. Those voting against were trustees Hattie Jackson, Joan McGivney and Libby Fitzgerald.
The African-American support for Dorsey, who is African-American, on the Board of Trustees is split. Graham supported her contract renewal, while Jackson opposed it. None of Dorsey’s most active faculty opponents is black.
Overload and students
When Dorsey arrived at the college, many students with Pell grants were amassing incredible amounts of credit hours without obtaining degrees, according to inside sources. College counselors are supposed to ensure that students take mainly the courses needed for degrees and prevent them from spiraling into unnecessary student debt. However, these students were taking elective classes that didn’t apply to their degrees – some of which were taught by their counselors.
Before Dorsey arrived, faculty counselors on the Forest Park campus were earning overload pay by teaching courses during their eight-hour workdays. Current trustee Libby Fitzgerald, who voted against Dorsey, is a former Forest Park campus counselor who earned overload pay until 2007 when she retired.
In the fall 2006, Fitzgerald taught three personal development courses, earning $900 per course. She also taught a global education course, earning $2,700 for that. In total she earned an extra $10,200 in overload courses for the 2006-2007, adding to her then $70,535 salary.
In fall of 2011, Dorsey’s team put an end to this form of “double dipping” for counselors, angering many who benefitted from the extra perks at the Forest Park campus.
Among the trustees, Fitzgerald, along with Jackson, led the charge against Dorsey retaining her contract.
For analysis, see Political EYE.
