Valley College Told to Gird for Deep Cuts in Programs

Speaking two weeks after trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District voted to slash $8.2 million from its 1985-86 budget, Board President Dr. Monroe Richmond told 75 students and teachers at Los Angeles Valley College that budget cutbacks will gouge deeply into the college’s services and programs.

“It looks grimmer and and grimmer,” Richmond said during an informal question-and-answer session Friday at the Van Nuys college’s Campus Center. “I don’t like to see the dismantling of institutions that have served our communities, but the climate that exists is very anti-community college.”

In approving the $216.3 million budget Sept. 6, trustees for the nine-college system voted to lay off 53 non-teaching employees, increase student parking fees and, for the first time, charge campus employees to park.

Hiring Frozen

The cutbacks mean that fewer instructors and clerical workers will be hired. “There is a hiring freeze, and exceptions are made only in extreme circumstances,” said Norman Schneider, a spokesman for the district.

Richmond said that the prognosis for the 1986-87 budget is no more sanguine. “We’re looking at $10 million being cut off,” he said.

The only positive financial news Richmond brought to Valley College students and teachers was that the new California lottery, scheduled to begin Oct. 3, will bring $1.8 million into the college district for the current fiscal year. But that money has already been figured into the trimmed-down budget.

The root of the financial problem, Richmond said, is a decline in student enrollment. State appropriations to the district are based on average daily attendance of students.

Enrollment Slides

Last year, 102,313 students were enrolled systemwide, but this year just 95,191 are enrolled, a decrease of 7%. The decline could increase to more than 10% as students drop out of classes, Schneider said.

This year, Valley College has 16,801 students, down 6.5% from last year. Of the two other San Fernando Valley colleges in the Los Angeles system, Pierce College in Woodland Hills has 17,740 students, a drop of 8%, whereas Mission college in San Fernando has 3,562, a 6.2% increase.

The three Valley colleges account for about 40% of the district’s enrollment.

Richmond said the district’s financial squeeze may ease when enrollment increases, but added that immediate prospects of that are glum.

“Demography is against us. There’s been a drop in the number of high school students, at least till the 1990s,” he said.

Richmond, a physician who has been on the board since 1971, laid much of the blame for cutbacks on Gov. George Deukmejian, saying “If Mayor (Tom) Bradley had beaten the governor, I think the atmosphere would have changed. . . . There is little gratification and satisfaction in the current environment.”