Thank you for doing an editorial cartoon on this! It's very hard to get press coverage of community college issues.

We just found out recently that the school will actually have a budget surplus next year, but they are using the past budget crisis to try to roll the faculty's contract, including adding big co-pays to full time faculty's health insurance.

Part time faculty aren't so lucky--we don't get any unless we pay for a policy which is almost $500 a month for an individual like me (they have one price for for individuals AND families). That's nearly impossible since part time faculty get paid about 40-50% as much as full timers to teach the same classes.

The real issue at community colleges is the same one we are seeing in the White House: political offices being used to toss contracts to friends. At the CC level, this means buildings. The concern that trumps all others is getting contracts to friends of board members. To get contracts, you need to pass bonds. To pass bonds, you needs to have a sizable cash reserve in your budget (in the millions), to get that reserve, you need to set aside money instead of spend it. This always comes at the expense of students and faculty as we have seen with this hack they brought in from Barstow, who got a vote of no confidence from the faculty in his last district.

Please continue to cover this issue because it is so important to the students trying to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps at our colleges and the faculty who are trying to help them and make a decent living at the same time.