The Glendale College Board of Trustees commended the California School Employee Association (CSEA) and the California Federation of Teachers (the Faculty Guild) for ratifying the 1 percent pay cuts and increase in health insurances co-pay, during the regularly scheduled Board of Trustees meeting on Monday.

The agreement was reached after six weeks of negotiations. The pay cuts are expected to save the school about $600, 000 next year. “This is the first time ever we have taken a pay cut in the school’s history,” said CSEA and guild members. Their intentions were clear: They intend to help in any way possible to maintain the school during the fiscal crisis. In addition, the guild helped in the decision to approve an agreement with the Community College League of California to take part in an online database which would provide access to statewide information about current employee contracts, salary schedules, benefits, job descriptions, organizational charts, grievances, side letters, and other related reports.

Mmembers of the guild pushed for technology to make access to information more efficient. This discussion resulted in the passing of the action.

The board also passed a series of bids to begin the remodeling of the science buildings, but not until board member Ara Najarian made sure that the person in charge of funding had a retention plan to ensure the completion of all the science building remodeling projects.

The board recognized that GCC is ranked fourth in the state for transfers to UCs and CSUs, and the newest tenure track faculty member at GCC, Roger Dickes, digital animation instructor. The board also recognized the ways the budget is affecting the campus by showing a video.

In order to visually show budget cuts, Executive Vice President of Instructional Services Steve White showed a brief clip from the show, “Life and Times,” hosted by Val Zavala, which aired Nov. 7 on KCET. The segment was filmed on campus Nov. 5 and was aimed at the problems created by recent budget cutbacks on community college campuses.

The segment featured the GCC campus along with White and Tzolar Oukayan of the Associated Students.

“The segment was a great feature about the problems from the school cutbacks,” said White. “It also used the human element, by use of student testimonials, to help convey the message that class cutbacks are a real problem.”