Faculty at Maine's community colleges haven't had a raise in four years. But a bill before the Legislature aims to make it easier for them to finally get one. Right now, state law says new raises at community colleges that arise from a collective bargaining process must be included in the governor's operating budget and can be reviewed. But a measure debated today before the Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development Committee would take this authority away. Jay Field reports.

Tori Kornfield taught English for 30 years at Bangor High School. She says she got paid about the same, per year, as the average community college teacher, sometimes more. So Kornfield, a Bangor Democrat who now represents District 17 in the Maine House, was sympathetic when community college faculty members came to her to discuss the difficulties they're having negotiating a new contract.

"I think we can all agree that the community colleges play a vital role in making Maine competitive and training workers of all ages with the skills that they will need to be successful in our ever-changing economic environment," she said.

But Kornfield says the teachers she's spoken with say the contract impasse is making it harder to fulfill this mission. "The representatives of the faculty told me that their stagnant wages made it harder to recruit and retain qualified staff," she told colleagues.

So Kornfield is sponsoring a bill to remove what faculty say is the single biggest barrier to negotiating a contract with higher wages. MCCS teachers are represented by the Maine Education Association. LD 293 would no longer require that a collective bargaining agreement between the system and the union be part of the governor's annual operating budget.

"The crisis the system faces is not a lack of resources, but misguided priorities that have placed the quality of instruction dead last," said Charles Galemmo, who heads the community college faculty association. Galemmo says tuition receipts alone are up $12.5 million since 2008. Galemmo says MCCS administrators are refusing to discuss pay at the collective bargaining table until after the Legislature has adjourned, citing current law.

"Yet the dollars to stop the crisis are in the MCCS budget. The line for MEA faculty salaries in fiscal year 2012 alone ran a nearly $800,000 surplus," Galemmo said.

Galemmo says that's enough for a salary step boost and a generous cost-of-living raise. John Fitzsimmons, MCCS President, has a different take on the system's financial challenges.

"For the last four years, our state appropriations increased 2.4 percent - in the last four. We're about to be frozen for the next two - that's six years of trying to run a public community college system with a 2.4 percent increase from the state," Fitzsimmons said. "We have a public mission, without public support. That's what's going on."

In its first 10 years in existence, the community college system grew by 83 percent. But Fitzsimmons says growth, as a revenue source, can't make up for declining funding from the state. He says MCCS simply can't afford to throw its collective bargaining partnership with the state overboard and risk losing what little funding it's still getting from Augusta.

"When you have an underfunded system, and you don't want to turn to students for tuition, you take this away and this system - it will be at a crisis," Fitzsimmons said.

MCCS, Fitzsimmons says, would be forced to raise tuition and operate more like a collection of private colleges. And that, he says, would shut out thousands of low-income students.

In the interest of full disclosure, the Maine Education Association represents most of the news staff at MPBN.