Contra Costa College has officially hired Mariles Magalong as the new vice president of business and administration as a part of the college’s reorganization process.

According to Interim President Damon Bell, the decision to hire additional vice president positions was to match CCC’s sister campuses, Diablo Valley College and Los Medanos College, which both have three vice president positions.

Magalong was formerly the director of business services.

“In a nutshell, the director of business services is responsible for the college business office and custodial services,” Bell said. “The VP, and what I’m doing in addition to that. is responsible for the buildings and grounds department.”

Magalong said she has been doing vice president work since July 20 and will receive a 5 percent salary increase at $191,856 compared to her previous position.

As director of business services, Magalong oversaw all business and financial affairs at CCC, specifically personnel and custodial services.

As vice president, Magalong will oversee budget development, major construction and renovation projects, campus payroll, campus accounting, custodial, building and grounds, maintenance and more.

“A vice president oversees academic, student affairs and/or support services programs for a college in the district and serves as an assistant chief executive officer for the campus. Incumbents receive very high-level direction from the college president,” the job description reads. “The president reports directly to the district chancellor and is the chief executive officer of the college, and thus is responsible for the entire delivery of educational and other services provided by the college.”

However, this decision has come with concern from the Classified Senate. The majority does not agree with the three vice-president structure, a new system CCC is implementing. This plan includes also hiring a vice president of instruction and vice president of student services.

Anonymous comments presented during a Classified Senate meeting in September stated that some staff believe the three vice-president structure is unnecessary and an irresponsible use of funds.
Another comment suggested funds to hire the vice president position could be spent on hiring more classified staff instead.

“(The Senate) is concerned about the budget and concerned about the fact that we don’t have a lot of classified on campus,” said Brandy Gibson, president of the classified senate. “We lost a lot of the hourly workers during the move to remote delivery, so people are feeling sort of overwhelmed.”

In response, Bell said the college is currently being “held harmless,” which means the college will not currently cut funds. However, this is only temporary, Bell said. CCC could be held harmless for anywhere from one-to-three years.

Because of the switch to remote learning, however, the college did not rehire a significant amount of part-time and hourly staff.

“Some deans have made the case that they still need the help of hourly and part-time workers, and we have refilled those positions. Some of them have not made the case that they need those positions so that’s why we haven’t filled them.” Bell said.

This has caused concern within the Classified Senate, as some members note they’ve taken up a heavier workload since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Gibson said the Classified Senate has formed a subgroup to present these concerns to the college.