BBCC leader seeks more student aid, higher teacher salaries

MOSES LAKE — Financial aid for students and higher, more competitive salaries for faculty and staff at the state’s community colleges were among the concerns expressed Thursday morning as Big Bend Community College trustees and officials met online with Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

“We’re getting a lot of pressure on salaries for staff and adjunct faculty,” said Anna Franz, a BBCC graduate and member of the board of trustees. “We do need to have competitive salaries.”

Franz, BBCC President Sara Thompson Tweedy, and trustees Amy Parris, Gary Chandler and Melinda Owens, executive assistant to the BBCC president, met online with Schoesler, who sits on the Washington State Senate’s Ways and Means Committee overseeing the state’s operating and capital budgets, Thursday morning to discuss their priorities for the 2022 legislative session and supplemental budget.

Schoesler said he knows that BBCC instructors make less money than many public school teachers, and believes their wages should be comparable.

“Almost all Othello School District teachers make more than Big Bend faculty,” he said. “And that’s clearly a problem.”

According to Tweedy, the median faculty salary at BBCC is $75,000 per year, while the base salary is $57,000.

“Most of the teachers in the Lind-Ritzville School District would be taking a cut in pay to come to Big Bend,” Schoesler said. “Why would a really good science teacher leave K-12 schools to take a pay cut?”

Schoesler added that he doesn’t view school districts like Othello, Lind-Ritzville and Wilson Creek – all of which he currently represents – as rich.

According to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in Grant County in 2019 was $55,550, with per-capita income estimated at $24,280, while median household income in Adams County in 2019 was $48,290 and per-capita income was $20,250.

According to data available on the Washington State Fiscal Information website (fiscal.wa.gov) – a quick reference for state financial information, including salaries of state employees – most elementary homeroom teachers and secondary teachers in the Othello School District make over $60,000 per year, with the some teacher salaries topping $120,000 per year.

Amy Parris, the director of the School to Career program for the Othello School District, said she “already sees a collision” coming between the major salary increases K-12 school teachers got several years ago and the ability of school districts to maintain those wages.

“They are not sustainable,” she said.

Both Franz and Tweedy said they would like to see more financial aid made available for community college students, noting that 73% of BBCC students are the first in their families to attend college. Many students also have significant need and may lack the support at home to access grants, loans and other types of aid.

“Sometimes students need a little extra assistance to get through community college,” Tweedy said.

While Schoesler said he was broadly supportive of helping students, he said he was not entirely sure community colleges were the best place to spend that money, especially given the expansion of social services in Washington in the last few years and the fact that many school districts already have faculty and staff who focus on helping young people with no family history of college pursue higher education.

“I worry about mission creep,” Schoesler said. “High schools and nonprofits are a better place for that than reinventing the wheel.”

Franz and Tweedy also thanked Schoesler for his continued help funding BBCC’s building projects like the new Workforce Education Center.

“We appreciate all of the support,” Franz said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.