Important Update for All Faculty — LCCEA President’s Update October 20, 2025

Posted on October 20, 2025 by LCCEA

LCC Faculty Colleagues,

I hope this email finds you well as we begin week 4 of the term.

I’m writing with updates regarding the ongoing dilemma of democracy on the LCC Board of Education.

Based upon new information in emails provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, it is clear that the dilemma has risen to the level of a real crisis of democracy where the publicly-elected Board of Education members who represent the people of Lane County and the public at-large have been sidelined.

This summer, LCC President Bulger called two meetings of the Board of Education at the end of August without notice to the public. Oregon open meetings law requires public notice among numerous requirements that local governing bodies like our Board of Education must follow in order to ensure transparency and public oversight – critical for our democracy.

Several Board members, including Chair Folnagy and Vice Chair Rust expressed their concerns that the meetings would violate open meetings law, yet the LCC President chose to hold the meetings anyway. President Bulger later referred to Chair Folnagy’s messages encouraging her to follow the law as an “unnecessary distraction.”

According to the emails provided, the meetings pertained to budget cuts and did lead to changes in what Administration members took action on, further underscoring the open meeting law violation – all when there was a public meeting scheduled just a few days later on September 3.

These emails lay bare the underlying crisis of democracy at the level of our Board of Education. 

As faculty we absolutely love the work that we do with students at LCC — LCC is a most precious gem in our community. While we are deeply concerned about the crisis of democracy in our Board room and look forward to a future where decisions again are made in public in accordance with Oregon’s sunshine law, and importantly, with opportunities for students and community members to be informed and to have a chance to share their views through public comment at open meetings, it is more critical than ever for faculty to remain engaged in our faculty communications and participation in organizing activities, including attending Board meetings in support of democracy on our campus for the common good.

The future of our beloved LCC is at stake. Together, we can help preserve it.

In solidarity and with appreciation,

Adrienne

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Faculty Pay More for Insurance – Bargaining Update

Posted on October 17, 2025 by LCCEA

LCC Faculty Colleagues –

Our faculty bargaining team further analyzed the College Administration’s current proposal, and it would still cut millions of dollars from investments in faculty through benefit reductions, workload and class size increases, and cuts to part-time faculty jobs.

For example, the College proposal would dramatically increase faculty contributions for insurance next year even though faculty already pay the most among employee groups for insurance at LCC.

Contracted faculty would pay this much more out of our paychecks each year for Moda Plan 1.

Employee only: $1,089.80

Employee, plus spouse/partner: $1,190.65

Employee, plus child/ children: $1,022.31

Full family: $1,163.38

Part-time faculty would pay this much more out of our paychecks each year for Moda Plan 1.

Employee only: $1,213.16

Employee, plus spouse/partner: $240.15

Employee, plus child/ children: $238.71

Full family: $351.50

In addition, our Bargaining Team will be sending out a new survey for all faculty soon to gather more feedback on faculty goals.

Please find below two separate charts that are updated to show current side-by-side comparisons of faculty and Administration proposals.

The Action Team and department reps will also provide updates soon.

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team Leads,

Gerry Meenaghan

Adrienne Mitchell

April Myler

Peggy Oberstaller

Ryan Olds

Russell Shitabata

Comparison Chart Mid-Level Detail Oct 14 2025

Comparison Chart Oct 14 2025

Complete Folder of Proposals

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Memo to LCC Board of Education

Posted on October 15, 2025 by LCCEA

Esteemed Board of Education members,

I am writing with a few critical updates for your consideration. I ask that you uphold your roles and duties as publicly elected Board of Education members in voting per your own policies and in ensuring that the LCC Administration follows your direction and takes action consistent with your votes. The people of Lane County are counting on you to fulfill your democratic function as elected Board members governing our beloved LCC.

  1. The LCC Administration continues to present the idea in multiple meetings across campus that the LCC Board has approved or accepted cuts of $3M each year for the next three years. As you may be aware, the budget development process for next year has not yet begun, and this action appearsinconsistent with Oregon Public Budget law according to a legal memo and your own votes as the Board of Education. In addition, the Board voted on September 30, 2025 to explicitly exclude the $3M reference from the President’s goals.

See examples of direct quotes from management to faculty this week. In addition, I personally attended the College Council meeting last week where the Administration again presented to the full Council and numerous deans in attendance that the Board had accepted a plan to make $3M in cuts each year for the next three years.

Direct quotes from deans by email to faculty in their areas over the past few days:

“the planned $3 million in cuts starting in FY27 through FY29, which have been discussed at multiple board meetings and our Fall In-Service.”

“As part of the ____ Division’s 7% reduction to the part-time faculty budget…”

“As you may already know from various forums and sources, the college is projecting deficits for the current year and the subsequent two years. In order to begin to close these deficits and to begin to raise the ending fund balance to 10% per the Board of Education’s policy we are having to reduce the current year’s part time assignments for winter and spring terms. These adjustments are occurring across Academic Affairs. “

  1. The LCC Administration is directing deans to cut 7% from part-time faculty budgets across the college this year. Deans are cutting classes that students have already begun registering for from the Winter and Spring term schedules.  This year’s budget does not have 7% cuts in the part-time budget – this has not been presented nor approved by the Board of Education.  According to the Budget and Finance office, the amount built into this year’s budget for part-time faculty is $8,614,774, not including OPE. OPE adds an additional $2.M, bringing the total part-time budget to $11,543,797. Cutting this budget by 7% amounts to $808,066. This figure far exceeds the $675,000 in budget reductions that the Board approved and far exceeds the $262,500 figure presented by the Administration as a proposed plan at the September 3 Board of Education meeting, which the Board has also not voted to approve.

  2. Cutting lecture classes, which generate substantial net revenue on tuition alone without any state reimbursement, will not only remove opportunities for students, it hurts the bottom line. LCC will lose money and close the door to students. See below for details. A lecture class with only 15 students taught by a top-paid part-time faculty member generates net revenue. A single lecture class with 30 students generates nearly $10,000 in net revenue (after subtracting full salary and full OPE overhead costs). 100 sections generate nearly $1,000,000. A similar course taught by a full-time instructor at the top of the salary schedule generates $2700 in net revenue and $269,360 for 100 sections. Please note: these revenues are generated based on tuition alone, so state funding is excluded from these calculations, and the growth cap in the CCSF does not apply.
  1. LCCEA has demanded to bargain over the sudden cuts to part-time faculty, for which LCCEA has received no notice from the Administration. LCC is legally obligated to refrain from cutting these classes and negotiate with LCC. The LCC Administration has not responded to LCCEA’s demand to bargain. If the Administration continues cutting these classes from the Winter and Spring schedules prior to negotiating with the faculty, that action constitutes another unfair labor practice under Oregon state law.
  1. Finally, regarding the important goal of maintaining a 10% ending fund balance. Please note that BP 6230 requires, “When the Ending Fund Balance falls to 9% or less, the college shall adopt a plan to replenish the Ending Fund Balance to 10% within three years.” The FY24 Ending Fund balance according to the most recent official audit statement is $8,332,887, and LCC Administration estimates that the FY25 ending fund balance is $8,570,000. This ending fund balance has grown by $1M over two years. This means that the restoration which should occur over the next three years should amount to about $800,000 per year, not $3M per year. The policy requires restoration of the actual ending fund balance, not future projections that build in unrealistic assumptions such as 7.5% salary increases and 19% OPE increases.

Thank you for your service on the LCC Board of Education.

Your role is vitally important for our democracy, including responsibility and accountability to the people of Lane County.

Most sincerely,

Adrienne

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Bargaining Update — Progress: Our Actions Can Make the Difference

Posted on October 15, 2025 by LCCEA

LCC Faculty Colleagues –

Today we made some progress in bargaining. It is clear that the organizing activities like last week’s march, Board emails, Board speakers, and our robust voting campaign are having an impact. Let’s keep up our momentum! 

Today we proposed:

* updated language on privacy rights that brings us close to agreement on that issue (Art. 16);

* elimination of one additional MOA to meet College interests in simplifying the final contract (CBA Updates);

* updates on safety and working conditions in the event of a public health emergency that clarifies faculty interests and includes basic safety provisions such as remote meeting options and water and indoor safety standards that apply at all times (Art. 46); 

* updated language regarding a move to a new LMS (i.e., Canvas) that would provide reasonable time and compensation for the transition while lowering the total cost of our initial proposal (Art. 43); 

* a minor update to our proposal about new hire orientations to address College concerns (Art. 11); and

* a scaled back version of Art.9 that includes one non-instructional work day for Election Day in November for educational activities with no additional cost to the College.

The College proposed:

* to continue current language in Art. 1, withdrawing their proposal that contracted faculty who work 0.75 FTE would be considered part-time faculty; 

* one meaningful update to Art. 10 by withdrawing their proposal that would have allowed layoffs for the sole purpose of converting full-time faculty to part-time positions but NO update that restores part-time faculty protections against removal for exercising inherent rights (e.g. nondiscrimination, free speech, academic freedom, etc.);

* a proposal that would cut insurance benefits less than their previous proposal did, moving to Moda Plan 2 as the base plan, but also suspending important language that protects against large employee contributions for next year (Art. 33);

* a couple of updates that retain existing language on part-time faculty pay for specific committees and governance meetings and one incorporating a single provision from an existing ESL MOA (Art. 26, 34, governance article);

* a proposal to deduct contracted faculty dues over ten months instead of nine, resulting in lower deductions each month, but no response to our proposal to make similar changes for part-time faculty dues nor to pay part-time faculty for Fall term earlier than October 25 (Art. 31); and

* a slightly updated proposal allowing a faculty member to ask their dean to find a sub when ill (Art. 32).  

See links below for Oct 14 proposals and here all proposals.

Still, the Administration rejected all of our proposals on lockdown and public health safety, student needs (such as mental health clinicians and basic needs support), faculty essentials (such as office space, hardware/software to do our jobs, rights and protections around AI, ethical search processes) and many more.

Clearly, we still have a long way to go with significant outstanding issues including workload, compensation, class size, lab rates, and numerous others.

We will host informal Q & A session on Zoom, which is open to all faculty:

Friday, October 17, 1:30 – 2:00 Register here

The stakes remain high. Please be on the lookout for updates from your Department Reps and Action Team for more ways to participate and help shape bargaining in the coming days and weeks.

At this time, due to the Administration’s lack of availability, we won’t meet for bargaining again for nearly a month, and we only have the following four remaining dates scheduled. Please join us in building 2, room 214 for part or all of any session. 

  • Mon., Nov 10, 2-5 p.m.
  • Tues., Nov 18, 1-4 p.m.
  • Tues., Dec 2, 1-4 p.m.
  • Tues., Dec 16, 1-4 p.m.

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team Leads,

Gerry Meenaghan

Adrienne Mitchell

April Myler

Peggy Oberstaller

Ryan Olds

Russell Shitabata

PROPOSALS

Oct 14 LCCEA Proposals

Oct 14 Administration Proposals

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Bargaining Update & New Zoom Q&A Sessions Scheduled

Posted on October 8, 2025 by LCCEA

LCC Faculty Colleagues –

Today we made a little progress in bargaining. These were very small steps in the right direction. However, the vast majority of key issues important to faculty remain unaddressed.

Today we proposed:

* updated language on the nondiscrimination clause to adopt some of the language proposed by the college while still retaining important protections for multiple categories of faculty (Art. 7);

* updated curriculum development rate from $40.26 per hour (which would have recuperated all historic increases to catch up to inflation) to $36.72 per hour (which would recuperate inflation since 2022) (Art. 23);

* updated language that takes an incremental approach to ensuring sufficient staffing for student services such as mental health clinicians and child care slots available that reduces the immediate financial cost; (Art. 42); and

* updated proposal on Oregon residency to move toward the college while continuing to protect the small number of faculty who do live outside Oregon and to allow limited exemptions for future faculty (Art. 47). 

The College proposed:

* A minor update to Art. 41 to comply with the law; 

* A minor revision to their proposal on Oregon Residency changing only a few inconsequential words about notification (Art. 25);

* A revision to their proposal for Art. 2 that means the Administration is no longer seeking to eliminate past practice related to written agreements; 

* An updated proposal on privacy rights that makes meaningful progress to bring the parties closer together on this one issue (Art. 16); and

* An updated proposal on non-discrimination that adds ancestry, familial status, and union activity to the clause, but does NOT include protections for immigration status, medical conditions, reproductive decisions/status, caregiver status, height, and weight.

See below for all proposals. All proposals exchanged to date can be viewed on our Bargaining Proposals page here.

We will host informal Q & A sessions on Zoom, which are open to all faculty:

Friday, October 10, 10:00-10:30 Register here

Friday, October 17, 1:30 – 2:00 Register here

Thank you to everyone who made it to bargaining today, and a huge shout out to all who joined the solidarity march and rally on Saturday. We were 300+ faculty, students, OEA members, community and labor supporters strong, all marching together through downtown Eugene for a fair contract for our future and our democracy!

Nonetheless, the stakes remain high and we need to keep up our momentum. Please be on the look out for updates from the Action Team and your department reps for more ways to participate and help shape bargaining.

At this time, we only have the following five remaining dates scheduled for bargaining. Please join us in building 2, room 214 for part or all of any session. 

  • Tues., Oct 14, 1-4 p.m.
  • Mon., Nov 10, 2-5 p.m.
  • Tues., Nov 18, 1-4 p.m.
  • Tues., Dec 2, 1-4 p.m.
  • Tues., Dec 16, 1-4 p.m.

Your LCCEA Bargaining Team Leads,

Gerry Meenaghan

Adrienne Mitchell

April Myler

Peggy Oberstaller

Ryan Olds

Russell Shitabata

Oct 7 LCCEA Proposals

Oct 7 Administration Proposals

All Proposals

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