Accreditation - Hartnell College!!

Institutional Self Evaluation – 12-05-12
with before they become big problems. The head of HR, for instance, meets with the head of
the employee groups on a regular basis, as does the president of the college. In these
meetings, concerns are discussed and collaborative solutions are explored, with a goal of
empowering the employee or groups of employees to participate in creating the solution that
they need.
The student government and student groups were actively involved in the redesign of the
college center, completed in 2010. This redesign created new office, meeting, and recreation
space for students, a coffee bar, new lounge areas, and a home for the student government. A
student life coordinator is jointly funded by the student government and the District, and acts
as a direct link between the students and the administration of the college. Students are
represented on all shared government committees, and their contributions are valued on
hiring committees.
The District‘s integrity is also demonstrated in the way that it handled negotiations over a
budget crisis in 2009, and the ensuing negotiations over health and welfare benefits.
In the summer of 2009, when the state‘s financial situation created a budget shortfall for
Hartnell of about $3.3 million, the college president called a meeting of the Resource
Allocation Committee and the Cabinet, and outlined the situation the college was in. The
group took on the task of finding solutions, such as identifying areas where efficiencies could
be created, or ways to reduce expenditures. The group and related shared governance
committees met throughout the summer to come up with solutions. Nothing was off-limits.
At the end of that work, the group had found $1.6 million in savings. That left $1.7 million
that they handed over to the employee groups to negotiate. The groups met continuously with
the District, and each group was allowed to come up with its own way to meet its share of
concessions. That process, which could have caused anger and strife, actually unified the
employees, who were allowed to participate in the decision-making about concessions.
One of the factors that all groups realized during that summer was that the cost of health
insurance had gotten too steep. Prior to 2009, each employee group was treated as a separate
entity for purposes of health insurance. Each group negotiated a ―cap,‖ which represented the
monthly amount that the District would pay toward each employee‘s medical benefits. Within
each group, each employee had the same monthly cost of insurance. This composite rate was
arrived at by combining the costs of the whole group and dividing that cost evenly among
employees. Although this method was contained in each bargaining agreement and embraced
by the District and the employees, it produced three results that were considered unfair. One,
each group‘s cap might differ due to the group‘s negotiation success. Two, each group‘s
composite rate would differ depending on the distribution of employees in different insurance
tiers: single, employee plus one, or family coverage. Groups with higher numbers of families
had higher costs. And three, all single employees, regardless of their group, subsidized the
families in a composite scheme. As a matter of policy, the unions did not mind this fact, but
the District heard many complaints from employees about the unfairness of this situation.
The year after the employee concessions, the District proposed to each union to move away
from the composite rate and instead use a scheme whereby the District would pay the entire
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