For nine months, Sara Joslin probably woke up before many Sacramento State students have gone to bed.

She would pull herself from bed at 2:30 in the morning, long before sunrise, to deliver newspapers until 5:30 a.m. Then, she would go home, cook breakfast for her family and head to her day job as an administrative support coordinator II for the computer science department.

She is a department secretary with a bachelor’s degree in sociology who delivered papers for an extra $300 a month because her salary from Sac State wasn’t enough.

She has a long resume, including graduating from the University of Utah, working for a multi-national firm on New York City’s Fifth Avenue as an executive secretary for a vice president and with a New York City pharmaceutical advertising agency whose main product was Valium.

Joslin held her paper route from last November until this August, and said that in the seven years she has worked as a department secretary, she has received about $300 a month in total raises. That would equal out to about $1.88 an hour if she worked 40 hours a week.

That may all change, as the staff union, California State University Employees Union, has reached a tentative agreement for a three-year contract that includes cost-of-living raises and step increases every year for the next three years.

If ratified by union members, this contract would provide a three percent general salary increase for this year, a 3.7 percent raise next year, and a 3.9 percent bump for the academic year 2008-09.

It also provides a 1 percent service salary increase, a step increase that so many staff have wanted. Step raises are periodic increases in pay that CSU staff members have not received since the mid 1990s.

The only staff members that would receive step increases are those who are below the service maximum, which is the highest amount that the university will pay an employee for the position. The service maximum would be increased 5 percent each year under this agreement.

The raises for 2007-08 and 2008-09 are contingent upon the CSU system receiving the full amount from the state budget that it requests. If the system receives more or less, negotiations for salary will reopen.

Many staff members, like Joslin, said they would be making more money working an identical job for an outside employer.

This contract would allow small increases, called market equity adjustments, to bring the pay for those jobs closer to outside wages.

During the first year of the contract, all employees would receive an additional 0.324 percent raise thanks to market equity adjustment.

During the second and third years of the contract, there would be about 1 percent available for market equity raises, although which positions would receive the increases will be determined by negotiation.

The contract also stipulates that staff parking fees will gradually increase to the same amount that students pay for parking, but only if faculty parking fees increase as well.

Staff currently pays about half of what students pay for parking, said gardening specialist and the union’s Chapter President Richard Perry.

The contract would be retroactive, providing raises starting in August of this year.

Staff members on campus say these raises are a long time coming.

“We’re a growing department,” said Nancy Angell, administrative support coordinator II for the Biology Department. “We’re growing and (the administration) doesn’t compensate.”

Many staff members, like Joslin, complain not only of low pay, but of stagnant pay.

“You start at the bottom of a scale and you stay there,” Joslin said, explaining that CSU staff members don’t get step raises, like most other state employees do.

Step increases for CSU staff disappeared in the mid 1990s under California Gov. Pete Wilson’s administration, Perry said.

Before Wilson appointed several new members to the CSU Board of Trustees who worked to remove the raises, staff received 5 percent step increases every year, he said.

Some staff have questioned the union’s methods of negotiating with the CSU system, Perry said.

“The union will only push (the administration) so much,” said Rose Perez, administrative support coordinator I for the English Department. “I wish we could hire another union.”

“There are some disagreements as to how (the union) should push (the Board of Trustees),” Perry said. “Some argue that we should go to impasse, but some people think that this is the best (the union) can get at the table. … (The Board of Trustees) is pretty adamant about what they want.”

The union’s bargaining team has been negotiating since January, Perry said, explaining that even if it doesn’t believe the raises are adequate, once they reach a tentative agreement, they are required to recommend that the union members approve it.

If the tentative agreement is not approved, they will resume negotiations with the Board of Trustees.

“For me, personally, I don’t see the step increases as being sufficient,” Perry said, adding that it would take 15 years to move ahead the same amount as would have been possible in five years under the pre-Wilson system.

“I’m making no recommendation,” Perry said. “I’m going to let the members decide what they want.”

Cody Kitaura can be reached at [email protected].