In Feb., some of Mesa’s faculty went to the bank for their paychecks and were informed that the money wasn’t there. Instead of being paid on Feb. 10 as in previous years, the late start this semester meant that payday was not until March.
“Tighten your belts for no pay month,” reads a handwritten sign in the adjunct faculty workroom. Many adjuncts were not expecting the change, and did not receive warning from the school until just before classes began.
Geoffery Johnson, a professor in Mesa’s English Department, said the missed check would have been easier to handle if there had been more warning. Acknowledging that there was an email sent over the break, he said “I think part of it is that you think about your budgeting that you’re going to do, and you’re going to be inclined to be thinking that the check’s always going to be there because it consistently is.”
Having gone through a similar problem years ago, Johnson had “learned that he had to be prepared for something like this to happen.” But many other adjunct professors were not prepared. “I can appreciate why [the adjuncts] are unhappy about it,” he said. “They need more notice; they might be living a little close to paycheck.”
“Most instructors [here] are adjuncts. They work hard; they do a good job. Mesa’s got a great reputation because of it,”professor John Rall said. He, like others, feels overlooked by administration, and said that situations like this are “symptomatic of something greater.”
Rall works at Mesa College, Grossmont College and Axia College of the University of Phoenix, but even with three jobs, missing a paycheck was hard on his family. “There’s adjuncts who are not only not getting paid, but they’re going into debt and paying interest so they can continue to work and wait for a paycheck that gets more taxes taken out of it…In every regard, they’re losing money, even though they’re working,” Rall said. “It’s just a mess”
“They said it was some contract thing from ten years ago. Well, I haven’t been here for ten years, so I didn’t read all these little stipulations,” Rall said.
Mesa’s administration is aware of this problem – Kathleen Wells, Senior Office Manager at Administrative Services, said “I really empathize with them, because you depend on pay and all of a sudden it’s not there. And if you’ve already written bills, you’re in trouble.”
The contract has been in effect for a decade, but like Rall, most instructors weren’t aware of the fine print. They expected pay warrants at the usual time, but “the Academic Calendar Committee decided on a late start,” said Wells, “and I don’t know what criteria they use.”
Wells noted that access to the contract is available on the district payroll’s website, but that she thinks “it’s more a matter of thinking about it and asking the questions.”
Administrative Services is working to resolve this problem by starting a Web page through Mesa’s site that would aim to reduce confusion. “Everybody sees the same thing, reads the same thing, and then if they don’t understand it they always have the opportunity to call here and say ‘what does this mean?’” When she presented the idea to professors, they said that it was a good idea if an email was sent out whenever something changed. Wells is currently working on pulling information together with the webmaster, and is hoping to have it online by fall.
Because March 10 falls on a Sunday, pay warrants will be issued on the 8th. With only a few more days before receiving their paychecks, affected professors made it through, and administration is working to prevent a similar experience in the future.