Layoff Vote Puts Coaches’ Jobs on Line

The Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees will vote today on a measure that would authorize layoff notices to 69 full-time faculty members, including 17 physical education teachers, a district spokesman said Tuesday.

If it passes, some athletic coaches could be subject to layoff effective June 30, spokesman Norm Schneider said. The elimination of coaches could, as a year ago, place certain athletic programs throughout the district in jeopardy. Layoffs were partly responsible for the elimination of the Pierce football and men’s basketball programs and 14 others throughout the nine-school district. Valley, Pierce and Mission, three of the five Valley-area community colleges, would be affected by the layoffs.

“I’m sure it will affect athletics,” Trade-Tech Athletic Director Courtney Borio said Tuesday. “It did this year.”

Last March, the district voted to issue 157 seniority-based layoff notices, including 39 in physical education. After a complex appeals process, 51 instructors were laid off at the end of the fiscal year, with all but two being rehired in time for fall classes, Schneider said. Meanwhile, 30 part-time coaches in the district were fired to make legal way for the faculty layoffs.

The thought of repeating the entire process does not appeal to Borio.

“It’s all negative,” he said. “Morale continues to drift down to nothing because this is an awful way to do business.”

The district is considering the layoff action in light of a projected $11.9 million budget deficit for the 1987-88 school year, according to Virginia Mulrooney, district vice chancellor for personnel services. The layoffs would save the district $1.5 million in overhead costs, Mulrooney said.

It is the second straight year the district board has looked to faculty layoffs as a means of reducing a budget deficit.

“These cuts go much deeper, because they are budgetary cuts, not programmatic cuts,” Mulrooney said. “Last year, we were looking to restructure our staff, which we have done.”