Are you a full-time faculty member retiring this year? If so, thanks for your service to our students!
Before you grade that last term paper, you should know that, according to our contract, you are entitled to your full $2000 of professional development funds even if you are retiring halfway through the biennium. Here’s the relevant text:
2.12.3 Full-time Individual Allocation. Full-time academic employees assigned to programs supported through SBCTC funding allocation shall be granted a minimum of $2,000 per employee to be used over a fixed two-year period (to coincide with each fiscal biennium).
…
a. The fund shall be administered through the division administrator's office. Effective July 1, 2015, the funds are available beginning July 1st of the first year in the two-year
cycle (first fiscal year of each biennium).
The union is bringing this to your attention because we have received reports of the management of the college pro-rating the amount of professional development funds that are granted to retiring full-time faculty. For example, if a full-time faculty member were retiring after the first year of the biennium, they would only receive $1000 instead of the full $2000.
Pro-rating these funds is in violation of the contract. As a full-time faculty member, you earned those funds as of July 1, 2025, and they are yours to use.
You may be thinking, why would I want to spend my professional development funds? I’m about to retire! Here’s some suggestions for what you can do with those professional development funds:
- Donate your funds to another full-time faculty member who needs them.
- Donate them to the associate faculty professional development funds pool so associate faculty can use them.
- Purchase equipment for your department that other faculty might not have the funds to purchase.
If you would like to know how much professional development money you were granted back in July, contact your dean. If you discover that you were not granted the full $2000 back in July 2025, please contact the union immediately at aftedmonds@gmail.com and also contact our VP of Dispute Resolution, Mary Whitfield, at mary.whitfield@edmonds.edu so we can remedy the situation.