Youth will be served in 2016, but for a lot less money.
Southwestern College has embarked on an ambitious early retirement program in hopes of luring 40-50 of its oldest and best-paid employees to the sidelines so that younger, less-expensive personnel can replace them.
Academic staff and administrators have been offered two options. They can retire and receive two years service credit from the State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) or separate from SWC and receive 25 percent of their annual salary for three years.
Employees who choose the installments are separated from SWC, but not officially retired, so they would be able to continue their careers elsewhere.
Faculty members had until Oct. 1 to submit their letter of intent to retire by Dec. 30. A mix of 23 vice presidents, deans, professors, specialists and counselors from several departments will retire by the end of the semester.
“You definitely need to make an appointment with whoever your retirement system was with,” said Janet Mazzarella, dean of Math, Science and Engineering, who will be retiring in December. “The person you talk to can quickly run a scenario for you, so it’s really easy to tell which option is better for you.”
Mazzarella said she was not even sure if she wanted to retire until she met with CalSTRS.
“I could sort of keep working and keep working because I love my job, but once somebody lays the numbers out in front of you, it just doesn’t make sense for me to keep working,” she said. “In the community college system we have great jobs and they are not as easy to get up and walk away from as K-12 or others, so I think it’s a great plan to offer that incentive and get people to really think about it.”
College president Dr. Melinda Nish said she encourages employees to contact their retirement system and see what options they have.
“The idea was to provide a nice incentive, desirable on the part of the staff,” she said.
Classified employees were also offered 25 percent of their annual salary for three years. They must be at least 50 years old and have worked 10 years at SWC. So far, only 18 have submitted their letters of intent. The amount is expected to increase by Dec. 1, the official deadline.
In 2011 a similar incentive was offered and 39 employees retired. SWC Director of Human Resources Marvin Castillo predicted 40-50 employees will apply for the early retirement incentive this semester.
“Anywhere from 15, 20, 25 of each category of employees,” he said.
Human Resources will have to prepare for a wave of new employees, said Castillo. Nish agreed.
“We are not trying to reduce the total number of faculty,” she said. “We are going to be doing more hiring than usual this academic year.”
If a full-time employee decides to retire, a full-time employee will be hired, said Castillo. Same for part-time employees, he said.
SWC is projected to save $650,000 in salary costs during the spring 2016 semester, according to Jim Austin, interim vice president of financial affairs. The average annual salary of a retiring faculty member is $110,065, while the entry-level salary for tenure-track faculty ranges from $49,789-91,899. Average salary for a retiring classified employee is $57,005.
“It’s a big investment for the college, so we want to spend time and do our hiring right,” said Nish. “Everyone on the hiring committee is going to have a new orientation (focusing on) diversity, well-qualified and diverse (applicant) pools.”
Retiring faculty members are Valerie Goodwin-Colbert, Mary Holmes, Donna Arnold, Gary Creason, Dr. Steven Crow, Sylvia Felan-Gonzalez, Beatrice Zamora-Aguilar, Maya Bloch, Terry Davis, Carla Kirkwood, Stephen Tadlock, Jonathan Atwater, Paul Azevedo, Nouna Bakhiet, Raga Bakhiet, Norma Cazares, Dinorah Guadiana-Costa, William Horlor, Walter Justice, Janet Mazzarella, Sherilyn Salahuddin, Vivien Vaughan and Mark Pentilescu.
So far 18 classified employees have submitted letters of intent to retire. They are June Gomez, Lourdes Sevilla, Bertha Rose Williams, George Ybarra, Federico Buch, Lori Gorton, Rebeca Montalvan-Toth, Carlos Berrios, Joseph Fighera, JoAnn Forbes, Efrain Jimenez, William Jones, Carlos Richardson, Patricia Gonzales, Rosana Pedroza, Martha Campa, Ana Frias and Samuel Macaraeg.
Classified employees may still submit letters until Dec. 1.
