{"id":12517,"date":"2011-11-29T05:41:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T05:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=12517"},"modified":"2011-11-29T05:41:21","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T05:41:21","slug":"rates-for-nmc-instructors-overload-faculty-to-be-revamped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/rates-for-nmc-instructors-overload-faculty-to-be-revamped\/","title":{"rendered":"Rates for NMC instructors, overload faculty to be revamped"},"content":{"rendered":"
College permanent employees will be asked to teach to save on hiring instructors<\/div>\n
By Moneth Deposa
\nReporter<\/div>\n

Due to a huge budget shortfall this fiscal year, Northern Marianas College president Sharon Hart will be enforcing cost-effective measures to avert a \u201cchaotic situation\u201d at the college. Among the steps she plans to implement is a change in the rates of adjunct instructors and overload faculty members.<\/p>\n

Hart told the Board of Regents yesterday that under the existing practice, NMC determines rates for adjunct instructors based on their educational credentials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re going to change that and we [have a number of reasons to] believe that it needs total revamp,\u201d said Hart.<\/p>\n

She also disclosed that permanent employees of the college will be asked to teach to save on hiring adjuncts and additional faculty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s time to really focus within the college and look at our current staff. We’re looking at absorbing the cost [budget shortfall] internally by re-using our personnel in areas where they are needed and I believe we have a very educated staff and employees. We may include the teaching service as part of their contractual obligation to the college,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n

For example, Students’ Services dean Leo Pangelinan, who must put in 40 hours weekly as program dean, can reduce this to 30 hours a week and render the remaining 10 hours by teaching students.<\/p>\n

Saipan Tribune learned that because of the lack of instructors, some faculty members teach a number of classes above the allowed credit and this is classified as overload. In previous fiscal years, this expense would reach close to a million dollar. Payment is sourced from tuition collected from students.<\/p>\n

Because NMC has been incurring such a huge cost for overloads, Hart said the new rates will minimize this cost.<\/p>\n

According to Barbara Merfalen, dean of Academic Programs, NMC is projected to incur a $432,783 shortfall this fiscal year.<\/p>\n

Based on the local budget of $5.1 million, she explained that $3.9 million will be used for personnel cost while $1.2 million is for all others and operation. However, because the average payroll is $216,224 for all employees, this brings to $5.6 million the estimated total payroll projection for 26 pay periods.<\/p>\n

Merfalen said the total budget shortfall assumes that the entire budget of $5.1 million is used toward personnel, with no staffing changes.<\/p>\n

NMC has two funding sources: local appropriation and tuition and fees from students.<\/p>\n

As part of the cost-effective proposal to address the shortfall, Merfalen said that NMC should scout for cheaper airfare for official business trips.<\/p>\n

Merfalen also recommended cutting legal fees by contracting a lawyer for the college instead of a yearly fixed contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

College permanent employees will be asked to teach to save on hiring instructors By Moneth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}