The California State Auditor released a comprehensive review of the 50% Law in April 2025 (Report 2023-126, "Oversight of the 50 Percent Law Is Ineffective"). The findings underscore why FACCC, CCA, and CTA have been so protective of the law's integrity — and why the current fight over AB 2121 (see the companion article on AB 2121) is not an abstract debate.

The single most striking number in the audit: statewide, community college administrator full-time-equivalent positions grew by 45 percent between FY 2013-14 and FY 2023-24. Faculty FTE grew by just 3 percent over the same decade. Administrator salaries grew 116 percent; support staff and faculty salary growth trailed. The audit also documented several districts incorrectly reporting transactions as Instructor Salaries, unclear guidance from the Chancellor's Office on what counts, and, in the case of Calbright College, a failure to apply for a 50% Law exemption at all despite the college's all-online, job-training model.

The Auditor made recommendations to the Legislature: amend the law to count counselor and librarian salaries toward Instructor Salaries — but only if the overall percentage floor is raised proportionally; allow districts to exclude instruction-tied technology expenses from the calculation; clarify what constitutes "noninstructional" uses of lottery funds; and require districts to report annually to the Legislature on new administrator positions and justifications. The Chancellor's Office agreed with all recommendations.

The FACCC response

FACCC responded the same day the audit was released, on April 8, 2025. FACCC President Wendy Brill-Wynkoop was measured but pointed:

FACCC supports counting counselor and librarian salaries as Instructor Salaries — but only if the floor rises with them, because otherwise the change dilutes rather than protects instructional spending. FACCC also supports excluding instruction-tied technology expenses and endorses the Auditor's recommendations to the Chancellor's Office to clarify guidance, verify compliance plans, require Calbright to apply for exemption, and train districts on data submission.

The wider context — what FACCC has been documenting for years

FACCC's Spring 2024 white paper "The 50% Law: A Critical Protection" (Wendy Brill-Wynkoop in FACCCTS) put the audit's numbers in context. Some of the pattern the paper documents:

• Only about 37 percent of total community college budgets — including categorical funding — actually goes to instruction. The 50 percent floor is barely a minimum safeguard, not a ceiling.
• Nearly 70 percent of community college classes are taught by adjunct faculty, well short of the system's 75/25 full-time-to-part-time goal.
• Between 2019 and 2023, full-time faculty statewide dropped 16.3 percent (from 19,482 to 18,696) while student enrollment dropped only 2.3 percent. Administrator counts rose 15.5 percent in the same window.
• District reserves rose from an average of 16.1 percent of expenditures in 2009-10 to over 35 percent by 2021-22. Nearly half of districts now hold reserves above 25 percent.
• A separate 2022 state audit found $450 million in state funds allocated for full-time faculty hiring had been improperly used or left unspent.

The pattern the numbers describe is the same pattern faculty at Cypress, Fullerton, and NOCE have been describing for years: administrator ranks growing while faculty ranks contract or hold flat, reserves accumulating while instructional needs go unmet, and a statutory floor that is more essential now than when it was written.

FACCC's white paper and the full State Auditor report are both available online (search "State Auditor Report 2023-126" and "FACCC 50 Percent Law White Paper" for the primary sources). Members who want the deeper background before contacting their legislators on AB 2121 should read both.