5/11/22 Public comment

Good evening chair Ripley, chancellor, board members, colleagues and guests. My name is Makyla Hays. I am
math faculty, Pima online department head, and PCCEA president.

The class and comp study has been the focus topic for most of my public comments this year and today is no
different. I want to start by acknowledging that in several public forums Administration has assured employees
that no one will be paid less next year in the new structures, and that should initial contracts for the year not be
issued on a new salary schedule, that back pay will be issued for any difference at the time of new contracts.
Also, in the budget proposal, monies have been set aside to pay for adjustments, and there has been a
commitment that each person should see some sort of increase for next year rather than just remaining at the
same rate. We appreciate those commitments.

I also want to thank Dr Bea and the HR team for listening to faculty input and taking the Faculty Steering
Committees suggestions seriously. Because of this, I am much more confident in the outcome of the study.
Even though we don’t have a finalized schedule yet, it will be a better product.

It is very unfortunate that we do not have a salary schedule or policy on placement or movement to share with
the faculty today as a majority of their contracts end next week. Unless we send at least some partial
information out early next week, faculty beyond the steering committee will not have had any opportunity to
provide feedback on this new structure and will be surprised by a new salary offer in June. PCCEA hopes that
enough information can be shared before the end of contracts so that faculty will have an idea of what is to
come and will be comfortable with this course of action.

There are still many details to work out, such as the actual salary schedule along with objective rules and
guidelines for placement and movement. There are also more conversations to be had next year, like pay in
hard-to-hire disciplines. Also, policy language still needs to be written surrounding all these changes and sent
out for comment following the AERC process.

Faculty on the steering committee have worked hard to get feedback to the consultants at each stage of this
process in a timely manner, asking clarifying questions as necessary so that we could be confident in the
direction we were moving. This could prove quite frustrating as answers were not readily available to many
questions, and often we had to ask the same questions multiple times over multiple meetings to understand
the proposals we were supposed to be deciding between. This lack of response to our questions led to delays
that I believe are a good part of what put us in the position we are now in. I share this in the interest of
transparency; I want the board to know that while I do see an effort of collaboration by the college, it has been
a difficult and frustrating process at times to get necessary answers, especially when those answers needed to
come from the consultants.

After all that, I want to reiterate, I do believe that we will end up with a decent product at the end of this for
faculty, and I do believe our input is being heard and incorporated. Also, I want to say I can only speak to my
experience on the faculty committee, and do not speak for the Staff as they are on a separate committee.

I know the board has a lot on your plate right now, and I wanted to express my gratitude for the effort made to
keep an eye on the overall Budget as well as the Class and Comp study. Your work is appreciated.