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Spring sprinters Shiloh Drake, Morgan Johnson and Daijon Tyler of the Auraria Child Care Center run for the roses up the Ninth Street Park near the end of recess Wednesday morning.
Adam Dennis/ The METROPOLITAN
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Profs sue Metro for back pay Faculty members say college paid new hires same as senior staffers Ryan Bachman The METROPOUTAN
Seventy-two of Metro's professors are slapping the school and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education with a $5.9 million lawsuit for back pay from the years 1988-89 and 1993-94. The "breach of contract suit" was filed after the Board of Trustees failed to follow a written policy on parity and equity from both the faculty and the trustee handbooks, said Norman Pence of Computer Information Systems. "The policy on parity is a comparison of salaries of the faculty at Metro based on rank and discipline with its 19 other peer institutions," said Pence. The faculty lawsuit claims 4Metro failed to accommodate faculty members with salaries equal to those of peers at the comparable U.S. colleges. On that parity
experience, basis Metro professaid Schmidt. sors are paid below The Trustees what the other colmoved three weeks lating institutions ago to dismiss the said John Schmidt, case, saying the facprofessor of industrial technologies. ulty did not have Faculty who contracts and that filed the suit the language used in demanding the back the handbooks on pay have formed the parity and equity Faculty Protective was not legally binding, Pence said. Association. Another trend Judge Robert - Debbie Thomas Hyatt, who is prepreceding the suit Director of College siding over the case was that for the last Communications said last week that 10 years, Metro hired professors and paid them equal or the case contained enough evidence to be sometimes even more than the professors heard. who had been at Metro for many years However, Schmidt said the trial, despite those professors having more which began Monday, is moving at a
"We strongly disagree with the position taken by the
plaintiff, and we intend to defend this lawsuit vigorously."
snail's pace. The case was originally scheduled to last only three weeks, Pence said, but now it has moved up to four weeks and could possibly run up to five or six. "It's becoming blatantly obvious to the plaintiff - the faculty - that the state is dragging this out as long as they can," Schmidt said. Attorneys from both sides agreed to speed up the process by refraining from asking every faculty member the same questions. Metro attorney Lee Combs and the school's administration maintains that the case has no basis. "We strongly disagree with the position taken by the plaintiff and we intend to . defend this lawsuit vigorously," said Debbie Thomas, director of college communications.
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