Trustees of Strapped L.A. Colleges May Double Their Own Pay

Despite their well-publicized financial difficulties, the trustees of the Los Angeles Community College district will consider a proposal Wednesday to double their own salaries--to $2,000 a month.

The proposal has amazed and outraged many district employees, whose ranks have been thinned by the board in recent months in an effort to save money and realign educational priorities.

‘It’s incredible it would even be considered at this point until we resolve the current problem (of layoffs),” said Lou Albert, a Los Angeles Valley College health education instructor who will be without a job at the end of this month if an appeal fails. Albert is one of 48 tenured instructors whom the board voted to lay off last month.

Kris Scherf, an employee in the data processing center at Los Angeles City College, said she was floored by the proposal.

‘Find It Outrageous’

“We who work for the colleges find it outrageous. We are working under reduced staff and increased stress. . . . That money should be going to us,” she said, because district employees have not received regular raises for several years.

This year marked the first time in the district’s history that the administration had to lay off tenured teachers, a decision that sparked protest rallies and boycotts on several of the system’s nine campuses.

In recent months, the board also dismissed about 50 clerical workers, eliminated several vocational programs and reassigned to other departments about 100 instructors who taught in fields that the district considered “low demand.”

The trustees appear to be divided on the pay raise issue.

“It’s wrong, and, frankly, if by some unfortunate chance it passed, I would not accept the additional salary,” Trustee Lindsay Conner said.

Board President Monroe Richman said he is against the proposal, even though he believes that a raise is deserved.

“I think the board has been working exceptionally hard, putting in more time than I’ve ever seen them spend on the problems of the board,” Richman said. “But, in light of recent layoffs . . . I don’t think it would sit well on the perceptions of the general public. I have serious reservations based on the timing.”

Motion Unsigned

Most board motions are signed by the author, but the salary increase motion was submitted at a board meeting last week without a signature. “It looks like it got there by accident, which is ridiculous,” said one trustee, who did not want to be identified.

However, two board members, who spoke on the condition that they not be named, said the motion was written by Trustee Harold Garvin, who has been a vocal critic of the board’s decisions to cut jobs and programs. Garvin could not be reached for comment.

Salary maximums for community college trustees are set by state law, according to Ray Giles, director of educational services for the California Community College Trustee Assn. Trustees in the state’s three largest districts--Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco--can be paid a maximum of $2,000 a month, he said, while board members in smaller districts earn from $120 to $1,500 a month.

San Diego, with about 60,000 students, pays its trustees $1,500 monthly, while San Francisco, also with about 60,000 students, pays $500.

District’s Size Cited

Richman suggested that because Los Angeles is the largest community college district in the state, enrolling about 88,000 students, it is not unreasonable to pay the trustees a higher salary.

But the colleges’ enrollment has been in a downward spiral since 1982, when they had about 134,000 students. The decline in enrollment put a severe financial squeeze on the district because state support of the community colleges is based on the number of students attending classes.

According to the tentative budget for the 1986-87 school year recently presented to the board by Chancellor Leslie Koltai, the district’s financial situation is improving, largely because of lottery money and special state funds given to districts with declining enrollments. According to a statement in the budget written by Koltai, the budget will be balanced next year with some money in reserve.