How much of a raise will Tarrant County College faculty and staff receive this year?
Aug. 14–Interim Tarrant County College Chancellor Erma Johnson Hadley got the headline Tuesday that any government official would love to have these days: “TCC is proposing lower tax rate, higher salaries.” Lower tax rates are always popular, but giving pay increases to TCC employees is a bold move, given the dramatic pay cuts taking place in the public and private sectors throughout the county. Whether either move actually will happen will be determined Thursday, when the TCC board of trustees meets to discuss the 2009-10 budget. While the recommended tax rate decrease is only 0.03 cents per $100 in taxable value, Johnson Hadley suggested that TCC employees should enjoy a pay raise of 3.5 percent. Her $345.4 million budget proposal telegraphed which stakeholder basket she’s placing her marbles in as she apparently works to be named the permanent chancellor. Faculty and staff will be her first constituency. Johnson Hadley, who is passionate about the district and has served it well fo
The Star-Telegram Editorial Board apparently believes that all Tarrant County College employees, faculty and support staff should sacrifice in these tough economic times — as if a freeze in salaries would save the local economy. (See: “Controversy in TCC’s budget,” Aug. 14) The board of trustees’ approval Thursday of a 3.5 percent pay raise for TCC personnel is not an act of defiance against taxpayers. In fact, several thousand of these taxpayers work for the college district, so they will be helping to pay for their own raise. It’s an all-too-familiar story: When the economy slumps, the middle class is targeted. And education becomes an easy scapegoat. After all, the ballot box provides the public a modicum of control over education budgets. But salaries in education are hardly the cause of our nation’s financial woes. For this we should examine the quantum leaps in multimillion-dollar bonuses to CEOs who shatter corporations with debt and irrational management, or the billions of dol
