I am a finalist for an instructor position at Kauai Community College. I was told that I will hear back late next week. If offered the job, I will probably be given 3-5 business days to make a decision. I was wondering if I could get some help on a pro/con list.
I'm 35 and my wife is 31. We don't have any kids, but hopefully in the next 1-2 years. We are currently full-time residents of Florida and part-time residents of Denver. We spend 3.5 months of the summer in Denver. I am a prof and my wife works retail. We don’t love Florida, but my dad is retired and lives 25 minutes away, which is nice. My wife’s family lives in Denver.
My current base salary is $42,600 and $48,000 with a summer course. I get a 5.14% employer 401K contribution. Based on my current position, I would top out at 52,000/year base salary, which is low. My wife currently works about 25 hours a week and makes $20/hour for a total of 25,000/year.
My starting salary at Kauai CC would be around $54,000 with a similar option to teach one extra class for a total of $60,000. They have a mandatory 3-4% raise every year based on years of experience and an additional 8% for promotion. As a result, I would top out around 115K – 120K. The current highest paid prof makes 130K because they most likely have the most years of experience.
Kauai CC is a pension and not a 401K. You get a small automatic pension without contributing your own money. You get a larger pension if you contribute your own money. I think the small automatic pension is similar to the 5.14% 401K employee contribution at my current school.
It looks like a first level 2 bed/2 bath condo with small yard is around 1500/month, within 1 mile of campus. There is a Costco near the college in Lihue, HI with great reviews. I would be riding my bike to campus and we would have 1 car.
I think these condo’s sell for 200K – 250K if we wanted to buy one. Single family homes are around 350K – 450K. In about 2 years, I would like to buy a single family home for 400K. We wouldn’t need the money to pay the mortgage, but we would like to try to rent out the house for 1 month during winter break and 3 months during summer break when we will be in Denver.
We currently pay very little state income tax because most of our income is in Florida. For Hawaii, our state income tax would be around 6-8% depending on our combined income.
Our current house in Florida has a total mortgage of $650/month. We would most likely rent is out for $1400/month and pay a management company a fee to manage. We also have a rental in Colorado with a total mortgage of $950/month and rent it out for $1900/month and manage it ourselves.
Thoughts?
I think the whole pros-vs-cons list boils down to "If you don't take this chance then you'll spend the rest of your life wondering 'What if?' "
You may have already done your research and already understand the following topics, but at the risk of telling you what you already know I'll share my usual general Hawaii advice.
I'm not sure where you're getting your real estate prices. I hope those numbers are good for Lihue but my impression is that Kauai is priced at least 50%-100% higher than that. Your best approach is to take the rental near the campus and then spend 6-12 months getting to know the neighborhoods and waiting for a bargain (that's a relative term) to pop up. Don't talk to any real estate agents until you're on the island-- one very aggressive tactic is to attempt to get you to put down a deposit on Hawaii real estate (only seen over the Internet) because otherwise all of the homes will be bought by Silicon Valley millionaires and you'll be priced out of the market forever.
You're right about eating local. Costco is a good start as well as joining the loyalty/rewards programs at your local stores. Find the farmer's markets and the co-ops. Embrace the unusual cuisine that you'll never find anywhere else.
I hope you have a good mentor in your department who can help you with the culture. The behavior of the students in your classes comes from a totally different background, and what works for you now may not work for you in Lihue. The younger adults may only be interested in acquiring job skills with the minimum amount of effort. If you're teaching computer classes, that's no problem. If you're teaching required History 101 then... good luck. The older adults have the usual learning obstacles of holding down a job and raising a family, and some may see Kauai CC as just a stepping-stone to a "real" college. There's also a firm bias toward the "life" side of work-life balance-- in a very good way-- and it should not be interpreted as laziness. When the surf is booming, your classroom will probably empty out. You could grab your longboard and join them.
If you're not doing so already, start reading TGI at
http://thegardenisland.com/ (The other big newspaper is the Star-Advertiser, but I don't think anybody on Kauai cares what an Oahu newspaper says about Hawaii.) You'll score bonus points for asking questions that start with "I read on the TGI website that..."
In 1992 Kauai was absolutely hammered flat by Hurricane Iniki. A map of the last 70 years of storm tracks shows that the island is a hurricane magnet. Everybody knows someone who was seriously injured by Iniki or had to live without electricity for three months. Over 20 years later, some homes and businesses on the island still have not rebuilt. It can be an emotional subject. Hurricane readiness is taken very seriously, and lessons learned from Kauai's experience with Iniki have led to nationwide changes in the American Red Cross' hurricane management-- like allowing chainsaws and pets in civil defense shelters.
You'll also notice apparently aimless conversation known as "talking story", which is your opportunity to get to know people better. It eats up the first 10 minutes of every meeting and all of your attempts to do business in a hurry. (Even over the phone.) You'll get lots of seemingly intrusive questions about your personal life. They're trying to make a connection with you. Since you're the "new guy" it's your chance to ask everyone else lots of questions about life on Kauai. People will enjoy hearing about your family and your ancestry, of course, and your thoughts about Kelly Slater growing up in Florida surf, and what Hawaii activities you'd like to learn more about-- but it's not a good time to tell people how things are done on the Mainland. You may get asked what year you graduated from high school or college: not because anyone cares about your high school or college, but because it's a tactful way to figure out how old you are. Your new co-workers have seen many people like you come to Kauai and go through various acculturation issues. They'll be welcoming but they're also a little skeptical about investing their time & energy with you until they find out what sort of person you are. They're keenly aware that you may only stay for a few years before moving on... much like the visitor industry. I've lived on Oahu for over 26 years and nearly half my life, but when I'm on Kauai people tease me about being a tourist from "big city Honolulu".
I hope that you're not the Mainlander who's been hired by the administration to take away a job from some Kauai local who should have had it. I really really hope nobody hired you to parachute in and fix something. I guess you'd have to tread gently around those issues until you know the history.
As you may notice from the other posts on this thread, people either love Hawaii or hate it. There's very little apathy. By the time my spouse and I got to Hawaii we'd lived all over the world, and we immediately decided that this is "the place". However there are significant disadvantages to living here, especially if you expect that someday your Mainland family will need more presence from you. People miss other comforts like four seasons, winter sports, driving long distances (let alone driving long straight lines), the food they grew up with that's not always available here (or is horribly expensive), brick houses, and seeing their professional sports teams.
http://the-military-guide.com/2011/10/13/lifestyles-in-military-retirement-living-in-hawaii/You'll form your own opinion about Hawaii life by the end of your first year here. I'd hold off any irrevocable or expensive decisions about real estate and families until then.
If it's the custom in academia, I'd ask for a moving reimbursement and possibly even paid shipping for one of your vehicles. A free plane ticket to the Mainland once or twice a year would be a nice perk, especially if it's in conjunction with a conference.