Did you know? The PFF/District Contract’s Article 9 defines the various leaves for full-time faculty, including Load Bank Leave (LBL). There’s a misconception that load banking hurts part-time faculty, but it can actually help them by protecting their classes when full-time faculty members’ classes are cancelled!
Facts:
Tenured full-time faculty* can teach up to 40% overload in the fall and spring semesters and have the option of load banking their overload pay (including summer and intersession classes). *While the current contract language allows load banking only by permanent faculty, we will be proposing extending that ability to probationary faculty in the future.
Load Banking is “the accumulation of current overload assignments for future redemption as load bank leave, or if such leave is not taken or granted, as deferred salary as provided in this section.” (9.15.1.2) When units are load banked, a faculty member doesn’t get paid for those units in that semester, but can use those units towards future loads.
During a semester in which a full-time member uses banked load, their regular assignment is reduced without a reduction/loss in salary or benefits. (9.15.1.3) For example, a full-time faculty member could teach 9 units in a semester (instead of 15) and use 6 units of banked load to make up their contract load. Their pay would be the same that semester as if they were teaching 15 units.
When looking at just the cost of an additional class, overload pay is less expensive to the District than part-time pay. This is because part-time faculty can receive office hour and professional development compensation, whereas those duties are part of the full-time faculty member’s contract.
Accumulating banked load can be a great way to protect a contract load and part-time colleagues. If there is a semester when a full-time faculty member’s class needs to be cancelled, they have the option to fill that portion of their contract from their banked load instead of taking a class from a part-time faculty member.
It’s important to note that full-time faculty cannot use load bank in a semester when they have overload assignments. More details about timeframes, maximum load banks, etc. are available in Article 9.15.
Bottom line: Load banking can benefit both full and part-time faculty. It allows flexibility in schedules for full-time faculty, and can help reduce the likelihood of last minute “bumping” of part-time faculty when a full-timer needs to make load.