City cuts force college staff 'bumps'
By Fleur BaileyNews Editor
The San Francisco budget crisis has caused the Department of Public Health to cut whole Civil Service categories, involving hundreds of senior, permanent employees, who are now replacing over 30 City College employees.
Omar Diaz, secretary to the dean of the Mission campus, is one of five full-time employees at the Mission campus who are being bumped out of their jobs by DPH civil servants with higher seniority.
"Unfortunately now I have to bump someone in a lower position, and take a large pay cut," he said. "I don't know where I'm going, but despite this I feel lucky I still have a job."
City College operates within Civil Service with the general understanding that budget cuts in San Francisco public agencies and departments may involve the legal method of more senior workers having the right to bump out and replace any employee in a lower grade.
The elimination of the categories of clerk typist (1424), senior clerk typist (1426) and secretary II (1446) of the DPH has resulted in classified City College employees being bumped out of their positions into lower-paid, less senior positions or being completely laid off due to seniority bumping rights within the Civil Service.
Madeline Mueller, chair of the City College music department, whose secretary is being reallocated to a currently unknown position, said she thinks it is manipulative to cut out categories from one area of the city and not another.
"The area being affected is the most common and popular in education," she said. "We have now inherited expensive people from the city. How many more classes will now be cut to accommodate their salaries?"
Dennis Piontkowski, department chair of mathematics at City College, wrote a letter to the board of supervisors requesting action be taken to prevent the layoffs and restore status quo at City College."We are losing well experienced secretaries," he said. "The people coming in have no knowledge of education, the institution of City College and how things work. But we do have a lot of sympathy for the bumpers coming to City College, it's not their fault."Piontkowski's letter states "the extremely severe, negative impact on the ability of City College of San Francisco to deliver quality educational services to the people of San Francisco."However, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted on Nov. 10 not to restore the city jobs that have been eliminated. The passage needed eight out of 11 votes to pass, but lost to seven.
"In the last nine years we've been more sensitive to diversity," Mueller said. "The people most affected by this are women and people of color. The three women supervisors who voted against this, where is their sense of sensitivity?"
According to Tom Jackson, legislative assistant for Supervisor Chris Daly, Mayor Gavin Newsom received an unprojected revenue increase of $8.25 million from the DPH last month, which Jackson said is just about enough to save the eliminations."We're doing everything we can to support these workers," he said. "At the end of the day, we're in tough financial times and it gives the city the opportunity to show it's true priorities and values. The politicians go around and promote a 'healthy San Francisco', but then they go and pull the rug out from under these people. We have the tools to fix this, but we're choosing not to."
The board of supervisors held a budget and finance meeting on Tues, Nov. 17, but even if one more vote from the board gave the passage the eight votes it needs to pass, Jackson said the challenge then is in getting the mayor to spend the money.
"The mayor is wrong, he has no sense of priority," Mueller said. "In times of recession, the community colleges are the safety net, we're supposed to be the star in their crown in terms of education."
