The 50% Law and Its Discontents (2024)

Apr

Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but students enroll into our colleges to engage in courses, which is why within the California Community Colleges system there is something called the 50% Law. According to the California Community Colleges Chancellor's website, the 50% Law “requires each district to spend at least half of its current expense of education each fiscal year for salaries and benefits of classroom instructors.”The purpose of this law is to maintain small class sizes and curb administrative expansion, yet despite its implementation, recent years have witnessed administrative growth, as evidenced by my analysis of the Chancellor’s Office Staffing Reports.

Table 1: Number of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Community College Administrators and Faculty, 2010-2022

Year	Ed Amin	Class Admin	Total Admin	FT Faculty	PT Faculty	Total Faculty
2010	2025.2	1501	3526.20	20094	15734.5	35828.5
2011	1993.8	1444.1	3437.90	19522.3	15147.1	34669.4
2012	1932.4	1616.7	3549.10	19012.1	14910.7	33922.8
2013	1912.3	1530.3	3442.60	18772.9	16607.1	35380
2014	1905.2	1598.4	3503.60	18614.9	16936.1	35551
2015	1996.7	1726	3722.70	19573.3	17182.7	36756
2016	2126.6	1938	4064.60	20716.7	17686	38402.7
2017	2085	2034	4119.00	19712.8	16338.5	36051.3
2018	2279.8	2194.7	4474.50	20977	16881.6	37858.6
2019	2236.7	2019.9	4256.60	20003	16875.5	36878.5
2020	2234.4	2269.9	4504.30	20270.3	14860.1	35130.4
2021	2200.8	2247.6	4448.40	20026	14769.2	34795.2
2022	2346	2521.5	4867.50	20174.5	14571.7	34746.2

As we see from Table 1, administration has grown by about 38%. Surprisingly, most of this growth is of classified administrators, which has grown about 68% (educational administrators has grown about 15%). By contrast, the total number of FTE faculty has dropped about 3%, with a 7.5% drop in FTE part-time faculty. Most of these percentage rates are due to part-time faculty losing classes during the pandemic lockdown.

*Remember, this is full-time equivalent (FTE) faculty, and since part-time faculty by definition do not work full-time, the headcount of part-time faculty losing positions is higher.

Percent Grown in California Community Colleges Positions in 2010-2022

In terms of cost, from my analysis of the California Chancellor’s Office Fiscal Portal, salaries and benefits costs for administrators grew by about 82% between 2010-2011 to 2021-2022 (from 330,674,469 to 601,281,952). In addition, some districts do not abide by the 50% Law, and those districts have seen some administrative bloat, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Selected districts' spending on instruction, salaries and benefits of administrators 2010-11 and 2022-23, and percent cost change 2010-11 to 2022-23.

District	% spent on instruction, 2022-23	Administrative Salaries and Benefits, 2010-11	Administrative Salaries and Benefits, 2022-23	% Change in Administrative Salaries
San Mateo	40.47	5,361,234	13,406,348	150
Napa Valley	45.28	2,028,574	3,234,596	59.5
Marin	46.86	2,205,362	4,902,376	122.3
El Camino	48.10	6,749,903	10,328,060	53

Some parties are looking to modify the 50% Law. For example, a two-page document distributed by the League of California Community Colleges argues that:

“It is imperative that we modify the Fifty Percent Law to reflect the current higher education landscape to include ALL faculty, including counselors and librarians, faculty release time, and adaptive technology support in the numerator of the calculation.”

In some ways that sounds great, except that would create room for more administrators. Furthermore, The League provides a graphic they call “The Current Formula” in which the non-instructional side includes “ALL administrators.Well, not quite. The “current formula” only applies to the general funds—not categorical funds. Some administrators are paid through categorical/restricted funds, so the “formula” is misleading; what pot of money are we talking about? If it’s the general fund and not including categorical and restricted funds, not all administrators are paid from the general fund. If we are talking about the total budget, then much less than 50% is spent on instruction. According to FACCC’s presentation “Deep Dive: The 50% Law,” when categorical funds are included in the calculation, 37% of all funds go to instruction.

More precise and improved data may emerge from an imminent audit conducted by the California State Auditor’s Office. Requested by Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, Audit #2023-126 will include in its scope of inquiry:

The extent of compliance with the 50% Law.
Activities of the Chancellor’s Office pertaining to the effectiveness of abiding by the 50% law.
An analysis of administrative position costs and “Report these amounts as totals and as ratios to comparable information for faculty, support staff, all staff, and students.”

This audit was prompted partly due to the Chancellor’s Office facing significant scrutiny following an audit from October 2000 examining its adherence to the 50% Law. Of the 10 districts, only four of them were compliant. The auditor’s office attributed this issue to a “poor oversight by the Chancellor’s office that allows districts to incorrectly report their level of spending on salaries of classroom instructors.” The upcoming audit, due to be published later this year, may result in more accurate data than what is available on the Chancellor’s website.

Many of us, myself included, agree with The League that some things need to be included in instructional costs, such as librarians, counselors, faculty release time, and professional development. However, if we do so we have to increase the amount required in the updated instructional costs equation—so perhaps it becomes the 60% Law? Most of all, administrative costs should be capped. Students do not come to our colleges to be administered to, and we must protect the quality of instruction rather than administrative salaries.

FACCCblog posts are written independently by FACCC members and encompass their experiences and recommendations.FACCC neither condemns nor endorses the recommendations herein.