Some of California’s community colleges do not have enough full-time faculty, and some misspend state funds intended for full-time professors on part-time adjuncts, according to a report released last month by the state’s auditor.
The audit—which state legislators authorized last year at the request of a community college faculty group—investigated state spending and hiring practices at the Foothill-De Anza, Kern, Los Rios, and San Diego Community College Districts.
Auditors partially faulted the California Community College Chancellor’s Office for a lack of oversight and for using a faulty metric to measure the districts’ part-time and full-time professors.
“Our calculations show that the districts’ actual percentage of instruction by full-time faculty can sometimes be significantly lower than the current metric suggests,” the audit stated. “Further, a lack of oversight by the Chancellor’s Office allowed some districts to improperly use the funds allocated for hiring full-time faculty.”
A spokesperson for the Chancellor’s Office was not immediately available for comment.
The report found that all four districts fell short of the state’s long-standing goal to have 75 percent of instruction taught by full-time faculty.
At San Diego, only 50 percent of classes are taught by such. For the other districts, Foothill-De Anza, Kern, and Los Rios, the audit showed 52 percent, 56 percent, and 63 percent, respectively.
Additionally, the audit found that in fiscal year 2018-19, Foothill-De Anza spent at least $378,000 of its $1.1 million in full-time faculty hiring funds on part-time faculty. In fiscal year 2021–22, it similarly spent $2.6 million of $3.7 million on part-time faculty.
Auditors also found that San Diego accumulated $4 million in unspent full-time faculty hiring funds over the past four years due to inadequate tracking of positions by its human resources division. However, the district will create new full-time positions with the funds going forward, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Kern and Los Rios maintain they used state funds to hire full-time faculty, but cannot prove they did so because they did not track the use of such funds, according to the report.
The audit called on the Chancellor’s Office to hold districts accountable for how they spend state funds.
“Requiring districts to report on how they used the funds would allow the Chancellor’s Office to monitor districts and would give the Legislature assurance that the districts were fully and appropriately using the funds to hire full-time faculty,” the audit stated.
There are currently 35,200 part-time faculty across the state’s 116 community college campuses, while full-time professors make up just half that number at 17,000, according to fall 2022 data by the Chancellor’s Office.
Spokespersons for San Diego, Foothill-De Anza, Kern, and Los Rios Community College Districts were not immediately available for comment.
