The accreditation commission that has threatened to sanction City College of San Francisco has cited the fact that 92 percent of the college’s spending goes to salaries and benefits as a main factor in its financial problems – and community college district officials attribute the high percentage to a history of generous pay and benefits for employees, including faculty, staff and administrators, California Watch reports. While higher education observers say many community college districts have scaled back benefits for retirees in the last 20 years, City College has not, for the most part. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office does not track districts’ spending on salaries and benefits as a percentage of total expenditures in a way that is easily compared, making it difficult to say where City College’s spending ranks.
“This analysis is something we don’t do and have not done before because it is an area we don’t administer or regulate,” Fred Harris, assistant vice chancellor of college finance and facilities planning for the chancellor’s office, said in an email…