State Criticized for College Budget Cuts : Ex-Orange Coast President Says Community System Is in Decline

In cutting the financing of its community college system, the California state government “shot itself in the foot,” a national college association official said Tuesday.

Bernard J. Luskin, executive vice president of the American Assn. of Community and Junior Colleges, in an interview criticized California’s three consecutive years of community college budget cuts. Luskin was president of Orange Coast College, in Costa Mesa, before taking his current position in Washington, D.C., last July. He also was founding president of Coastline Community College, based in Fountain Valley.

He was in San Diego for the National Convention of the Community Colleges, which ends today.

Luskin said California community colleges started on a financial slide with the passage of property tax-limiting Proposition 13 in 1978.

Sees ’82 as Pivotal

But he said the colleges’ economic picture worsened drastically when Gov. George Deukmejian and the Legislature began making massive budget cuts in 1982. The governor and the Legislature had agreed that the recession and shrinking state treasury necessitated cutbacks.

“The holocaust of 1982 did so much damage,” Luskin said. “It put community colleges in harm’s way for the first time in their whole history in California.”

He noted that budget cuts in 1982 were followed by a prolonged squabble, in 1983 and 1984, between Gov. George Deukmejian and the Legislature over the governor’s proposed $50-a-semester tuition at community colleges. The Democratic-controlled Legislature initially resisted the Republican Deukmejian’s tuition plan, and there was a long stalemate.

During that stalemate, Deukmejian vetoed $106 million for the community colleges. The money was restored when the Legislature finally gave in and passed the governor’s tuition bill, but many community colleges, including the eight in Orange County, had to chop their course offerings until funds became available.

Luskin said the canceled courses were a major reason community college enrollment started declining in 1983. “The whole thing turned out to be absurdly unnecessary,” Luskin said.

“They withheld $106 million and then they put it back after the damage was done. It was all unnecessary. Nothing was accomplished but harm.”

‘Shot Itself in the Foot’

Luskin said that, during the 1960s and most of the 1970s, California community colleges “were the best in the world.” He added, “In fact, California community colleges were the ignition for other states to develop their community college systems, which are now flourishing all over the country. But in California, decay (of the system) started to set in, both philosophically and economically, in the latter part of the 1970s, and, as we moved into the 1980s, California shot itself in the foot.”

Luskin said the California community college system may become stronger when a new state chancellor takes over--expected within the next week in Sacramento. He said he implied no criticism of outgoing Chancellor Gerald Hayward, who has resigned.

“I simply mean that a new chancellor gives the system a new opportunity,” Luskin said. He added that he would like to see the state community college Board of Governors and its new chancellor become powerful forces in the state and have ready access to the governor.

Luskin did not advocate changing the governing structure of the community colleges, even though he conceded that the University of California and the California State University systems, with one state governing board each, are much stronger. The community colleges are divided into 70 governing districts, for which trustees are elected at the local level. Orange County, for instance, has four governing districts for its eight community colleges.

Defends Local Control

Luskin said he thinks local governing boards fulfill local needs, but that there is need for the boards always to be “ethical” and to pick strong, competent presidents for each community college.

Musing on what he considers the decline of the state’s community colleges, Luskin said it may be that the people of the state simply took a good thing for granted. He cited his own experience:

“When I lived here I knew California weather was great, but I just took it for granted. But when I flew out here (for the convention) and got off the plane, the weather had an exhilarating physical effect on me.”