On July 20, 2016 the Pasadena City Community College Board of Trustees unanimously approved a 12% salary increase ($33,000) for the college’s new President Superintendent Dr. Rajen Vurdien. Dr. Vurdien is the 5th college president in less than 10 years and he has been at the college for only one year. The PCC Faculty Association believes this was a hasty move on the part of the Trustees considering all the recent errors on their part concerning the college’s leaders. It certainly is a misuse of taxpayers’ funds.

To be clear the PCCFA does not fault Dr. Vurdien for this decision. The fault lies with the PCC Board of Trustees. We believe that Dr. Vurdien has done a good job so far in helping PCC heal the wounds of past transgressions by our Board of Trustees. This is the same Board that is responsible for two consecutive presidential hires that nearly destroyed PCC and brought about our current accreditation problems. Recall that this college is on warning and probation. This is also the same Board that has consistently told all of the bargaining units on campus that there is no money available for faculty and staff and that the college will be operating in the “red” and dipping into the college reserves.

The Board of Trustees tries to justify their actions. They have stated publicly that Dr. Vurdien’ s beginning salary was a “little low.” This is just false. His beginning salary was the third highest in the state of California for single community college school districts. With Dr. Vurdien’s increase he is now the 2nd highest paid community college president in the state. The Board also stated that they compared his salary to presidents at only four other area colleges. This salary increase has moved Dr. Vurdien up to number two of these four. Remember this after only one year in the position and PCC is still on probation.

The PCC Faculty Association believes this is just another poor decision by our Board of Trustees. We appreciate the hard work and improvements that Dr. Vurdien is trying to make at the college. We would hope that these improvements will justify this 12% increase. In the meantime, it seems as if once again the Board of Trustees has learned little from their bad decisions of the past and this is just business as usual. Pasadena City College Faculty Association.