Dear Colleagues,
In super disappointing news, yesterday evening Governor Newsom issued his veto of AB 1856 (Medina) – which would have raised the workload cap for our adjunct faculty from the current 67% to 85%. His veto message can be found here.
Although we were successful in significantly reducing the Governor’s Office’s original bill cost estimates of $400M per year, we were not able to overcome all of their cost concerns. Essentially, the Administration had concerns regarding potential healthcare costs the bill could trigger and would like to see how the new investments and program changes to the Part-time Faculty Health Insurance Program play out.
We feel the Governor’s office and Department of Finance concerns are completely unfounded, but, unfortunately, our reasonable and mathematically sound cost estimates ultimately fell on deaf ears.
Given that this is the second year in a row he has vetoed this bill, we will need to regroup and reassess when would be the best time time to approach it again.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
In Solidarity,
Jim