Your Union

The Faculty Association works to support, protect, and advocate for Siskiyous faculty, so we can teach, serve, and lead our students under fair, respectful, and sustainable working conditions.

The Faculty Association Team

Executive Board

President: Kirk Thomsen

Phone: 938-5530 Email: thomsencosfa@gmail.com

Vice President: Maria Elena Fernandez

Phone: 938-5268 Email: fernandezcosfa@gmail.com

Secretary/Treasurer: Liz Carlyle

Phone: 938-5267 Email: carlylecosfa@gmail.com

Union Officers

Grievance Officer: Kirk Thomsen

Membership Chair: Liz Carlyle

Bargaining Team: Liz Carlyle (Lead), Ed Kephart, Ron Slabbinck

Member Meetings

Spring 2026:

February 13, 12:30-1:30pm

March 13, 2-3pm

April 17, 2-3pm

May 8, 2-3pm

The Association

By Laws

BYLAWS

Elections

Elections for the Executive Board are held in April. Open nomination occurs 15 days prior to April 1 of any calendar year.

Open Period for Nominations, Spring 2026: March 13-31.

Email Liz Carlyle to submit nominations.

Negotiation Updates

NEWS FROM THE TABLE

March 5, 2026

The COSFA Bargaining Team met with the District on Thursday, March 5th from 3:30 to 5:00pm.

The District’s actions and attitudes towards negotiations with the Faculty Association reveals their lack of respect for the process and our unit as a whole.

Our first item on the agenda was the request for information, which was delivered to the District at our February 2nd meeting, and in writing last November and January prior to bargaining.

On review, the COSFA identified incomplete information that shows incompetency and lack of care over both our placement on the salary schedules and a lack of intention to move this bargain forward. We identified inaccurate information on financial projections that is misleading the teams and bordering on fraudulent. Furthermore, the District is slow-walking everything and not taking responsibility for these unfair bargaining practices. We are currently working with CTA legal to identify options and put pressure on the District to take this information request seriously and come to the table to actually bargain fairly.

COSFA expressed our dismay at their lack of respect for the negotiations process and our unit as a whole and stated that since we doubt they even know their budget, our proposals will solely be based on making our members competitive with the rising costs of health care.

COSFA presented our opening proposal based on the priorities we asked faculty about in the survey we sent out recently. Thank you to everyone who responded!

COSFA provided this proposal for 2026-27:

4% between steps
5% increase across the salary schedule
Another 5% increase and additional step for 2027-2028

The increase between steps up to 4% would bring our salary schedules into alignment with other employee groups on campus. The Faculty Association has prepared Comp Charts that show how our salaries compare to similar colleges. We are currently the lowest paid compared with our comparable colleges, including Shasta College, Lassen, Feather River, Lake Tahoe, Copper Mountain and Barstow on their 2025-26 salary schedules. The District has proposed a 1% increase for 2026-27, which guarantees that COSFA remains firmly at the bottom, and makes it challenging to hire and retain faculty, especially with our current health plan crisis.

The most frustrating part of the day concerns the CBA approved by members in November. COSFA filed a grievance because the District had not yet provided a copy to the Faculty Association for execution and distribution to our members within the required 30 days per section 2.5 of the CBA. The District has sent two drafts that have very few changes made. We finally received a clean draft on Friday after negotiations.

If the District wants to do right by faculty, as they proclaimed in bargaining, we need to hold them accountable.

The upcoming board meeting is on March 17th, and we ask you to join us to petition the board. ~COSFA Negotiations Team

Next Negotiations: March 19th, 11:00- 12:30

March 19, 2026

The District and FA team met one more time on March 19th from 11:00-12:30pm

The District’s attitude towards negotiations with the Faculty Association has slightly improved since the last time, but their actions reveal once more their lack of respect for the process and our unit as a whole.

The district presented their budget projections and a counter proposal, which remains at 1%. This is the same as their original proposal with a date change.

While the FA team appreciated finally receiving financial information from the district team, it’s clear that the district is demonstrating its priorities through its budget. We are currently sitting on a 56% reserve, according to the financial information shared with us, yet this district does not want to spend any money on academic salaries for the foreseeable future.

1% does nothing towards covering increases in the health care premiums costs for faculty in 2026-27. It does nothing towards covering the cost of living increases. It is a token number and quite frankly, fairy dust in a budget of $28,000,000.

COSFA continues to press for information on part-time faculty yet we are consistently met with confusion on how to provide such basic information that should be easily retrieved by a functioning HR team. Information requests like this allow us to understand the costs of any proposal we bring to the district. Without sound information about our unit as a whole, we can’t reasonably negotiate in good faith. At the same time, we are losing faculty positions through absentee leadership that is allowing dysfunction to continue and programs to wither.

Again, we don’t need to remind faculty that we are currently the lowest paid compared with our comparable colleges, including Shasta College, Lassen, Feather River, Lake Tahoe, Copper Mountain and Barstow. We will continue to face challenges in hiring and retaining faculty, especially with our current health plan crisis.

We believe the district is not going to act without pressure. Please make your voice heard by coming to our meetings:

Communications team: April 2nd

Organizing team: April 7th

Member meeting: April 17th

Board meeting: April 21st

On a better note, the FA team is working with the HR director on the CBA we approved in November. We have completed final proofreading and it will go to Weblinks on Monday. The grievance remains in place until the CBA is posted on the website and copies are made available to the Faculty Association and our members. Please contact the FA Exec if you would like a hard copy.

In unity,

COSFA Negotiations Team

April 2, 2026

The District and FA teams met on April 2nd from 11:00-12:30pm in the COS Boardroom. The teams had a productive discussion on budget priorities and the FA presented their counter proposal that holds steady on significant increases to faculty pay. Our current counter on the table is to increase the percentage between steps to 3.75% (currently at 3.1%) and an additional 5% increase across the salary schedules for next year.

An increase between steps is important for our faculty. It would support those faculty who no longer have step increases to help absorb the large increases in health care costs. It would also bring us in line with the ASM raises last year (also 3.75% between steps).

We emphasized the need for the district to consider priorities carefully and come with a reasonable proposal that the faculty can vote on. The district’s strategy to stick at 1% is not a counter proposal; it is simply keeping the faculty in a holding pattern until the district is forced to move.

In any budget, dollars may be moved to support priorities in spending. It is our belief that the district can’t put students first if they put instructors last. Just because the college has a set amount of funds dedicated to a specific line item in its budget, it does not mean that these funds can’t be reallocated to support a different priority.

To dig in a little deeper, COS is currently spending 27.7% on academic salaries based on the total amount of expenditures last year, as submitted to the Chancellor’s Office. In comparison to other colleges in our region:

Shasta College spent 30% on academic salaries
Lassen College and Barstow College spent 32%
Redwoods and Mendocino-Lake Community College both spent 36%

Clearly Siskiyous is not prioritizing faculty in the same way as other colleges.

Further, we are currently sitting on a 56.38% reserve. This reserve is budgeted to dip to 45.82% in 2025-26. Even though these are budgeted numbers, this small reduction in our reserve is the key reason for the District’s anxiety about spending more money on faculty salaries. We would like to point out the ludicrous idea that we need to keep our 56% reserve. We are currently in flat funding, which means our funding will hold steady, and we’re still being paid more $ than the number of students we educate.

Our reserves are significantly higher than our comparison colleges for 2024-25:

Lake Tahoe Community College 17.74%
Shasta College 22.99%
Mendocino/Lake Community College 26.15%
Barstow College 28.68%
Lassen College 37.77%
Butte College 48.90% (budgeted to drop to 38.78% in 25-26)

We have three negotiation meetings left in Spring. Potentially, if the district can bring a proposal that prioritizes faculty in their budget, it could go to the board for a vote at the June board meeting. We believe we can put pressure on the district through our organizing and communications efforts. Please make your voice heard by coming to our meetings! These meetings have been very productive so far. We look forward to sharing more with faculty at the next member meeting on April 17th.

Communications meeting: April 16th, 12:30-1:30pm

Member meeting: April 17th, 2-3pm

Organizing meeting: April 21st, 11-12pm

Board meeting: April 21st, 530pm

In unity,

COSFA Negotiations Team

April 16, 2026

The District and FA teams met on April 16th from 11:00-12:00pm in the COS Boardroom.

The majority of the administrators were travelling for today’s meeting. VPAA Mark Fields and Dean Hallie Coppi were on Zoom; VPAS Melissa Ericsson was absent. Only HR Director Kristi Wilson was present at the table.

Kristi Wilson presented the District’s new counter proposal for 2026-27:

1.25% increase to the salary schedule, plus longevity pay
- 10-14 years: $25 per contract month
- 15-19 years: $50 per contract month
- 20-24 years: $75 per contract month
- 25+ years: $100 per contract month

For reference, longevity pay represents approximately a 0.02% increase to the salary schedule for someone on Step 16 with 10 years of service.

We found this offer insulting. The District’s spending priorities signal where leadership places its priorities, funding administrator travel and consultant fees instead of meaningful employee compensation. The Faculty Association once again questioned the district’s budgeted projections for 2026-2027, specifically the ending fund balance. According to the 311 reports filed with the Chancellor’s Office:

In AY 2023-24:

District budgeted for a decrease (deficit) of $2,161,309 to the ending fund balance
Actuals showed an increase of $1,869,362

In AY 2024-25:

District budgeted for a decrease (deficit) of $1,040,622 to the ending fund balance
Actuals showed an increase of $3,558,395

The District claims tight fiscal times despite holding a current ending fund balance equal to a 56.38% reserve. This pattern of budgeting for deficits while reporting actual increases raises concerns that these projections are being used as a bargaining tactic. We question this leadership’s ability to produce realistic budgets and believe the District has funds to address rising health-care and cost-of-living pressures for employees but is unwilling to do so.

We continue to hear talk of layoffs on campus. Whether serious or strategic, this rhetoric pits employee groups against one another. Absentee leadership, as seen in today’s negotiations, contributes to low morale and employees who are feeling fed up with the ways things are being run at COS. Please have open, honest, one-on-one conversations with your ASM and classified colleagues about working conditions and campus climate.

We believe we can put pressure on the district through our organizing and communications efforts. The district cannot put students first if it puts its instructors last. Please make your voice heard!

Come to the next FA meeting, after Academic Senate, Friday April 17th.

In unity,

COSFA Negotiations Team

Attend a Board Meeting!

March 17, 2026 Yreka Campus

April 21, 2026 Weed Campus

May 19, 2026 Weed Campus

Organizing Team Meetings

All meetings are from 11am-12pm on Zoom (unless otherwise indicated)

March 17

April 7

April 21

May 5

May 19

If you would like to attend a meeting, email Liz for the Zoom link/location: carlylecosfa@gmail.com

All faculty are welcome!

College of the Siskiyous Faculty Association, 800 College Ave, Weed, CA. 96094

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse