College Union Files Objection to Raises for Top Officials : Meetings law: The complaint says the governing board at Antelope Valley College may have illegally approved administrators’ salary increases.

The governing board at Antelope Valley College appeared to illegally approve special double-digit pay increases for a trio of top administrators last month because it did so with no public notice and after discussing the matter entirely behind closed doors, according to a complaint filed by a school union.

College officials acknowledged they inadvertently failed to list the raises on the agenda for the board’s May 14 meeting. But they insisted that the private discussion that led to the board’s public vote was proper.

The college union group, however, disagreed Wednesday, filing a complaint with the school that said the board’s actions appeared to violate the state’s open meetings law.

An official with the state attorney general’s office sided with the union group’s interpretation of the law.

Under the state’s open meetings law, public agencies are generally forbidden from taking action on items not listed on their agenda. The law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, also allows the courts to invalidate actions taken in violation of that requirement.

The legal challenge filed by officers of a classified employees union at the college called on the board to remedy the alleged violations. But college officials said they saw no reason to reconsider their decision, calling the agenda problem a simple oversight.

As a result of the board’s 5-0 vote, the college’s director of admissions and records, Jim McDonald, received a 21.7% raise. Charles Whiteside, college human resources and employee relations director, received a 16.7% raise. Also, Louis Lucero, disabled student services director, was granted a 12.4% raise.

McDonald’s salary climbed from $51,089 to $62,163, Whiteside’s salary increased from $56,918 to $66,426, and Lucero’s salary increased from $45,499 to $51,140. The raises are retroactive to July 1, 1989, and will cost the college $26,223 for the fiscal year.

The raises were not listed on the agenda for the board’s May 14 meeting. The board, however, approved the raises in a quick public vote that night just before 11 p.m., after returning from a two-hour private session. Neither board members nor college officials at the time explained what they were approving, according to minutes of the meeting.

Earlier in the same meeting, the board discussed and approved in public session a 1% raise that was on the agenda for all employees except classified union members, who are still bargaining with the college, records show.

In their complaint filed with the college, Melva Vlaming and Shirlene Barbero, officers in the Antelope Valley College Federation of Classified Employees, said the board’s handling of the administrators’ raises “resulted in no one knowing what was being referenced in public session.”

“There was no hint that there was an impending . . . decision that night. I don’t see how anyone could have divined that was to occur,” said Dave Kennedy, a vice president with the California Federation of Teachers, the parent union of the college group that filed the protest.

The complaint invokes a legal procedure set forth under the state’s open meetings law for challenging alleged violations. The college has 30 days to “cure or correct” its action, or decide that it will not do so. In that event, the law allows the union group to file a subsequent lawsuit.

Eugene Hill, head of the attorney general’s government law section, said his office had not reviewed the college board’s actions. But Hill added of the college’s pay raises, “It seems like there ought to have been an agenda item to cover that.”

In an interview earlier this week, college President Allan Kurki said the college’s failure to list the raises on the board’s agenda was a simple oversight. He called the issue a union-related dispute and referred to the raises as “not exactly a big deal.”

Two college board members, Earl Wilson and James Du Pratt, said they mistakenly had thought the pay raise was mentioned on the agenda. Both also said the board had not been trying to conceal the raises, which were larger than those granted other college employees this year.

The dispute is similar to one that arose in 1984 after the college board approved pay hikes for administrators with no notice or public discussion, according to records. C.W. Stine, then the college president, filed a $6-million libel suit again union leaders who had complained, but a judge later dismissed the suit after finding the raises had not been properly disclosed.

In the current case, the raises for the three college directors were the result of a consultant’s study commissioned by the college last year. That study, considered by the college board in private session last month, recommended changes to the college’s administrative salary structure.

State law has long allowed public agency boards to meet in private session to evaluate the performance of agency employees as part of salary decisions. College officials defended their closed session meeting that night by saying they were evaluating the performance of the three directors.

“I feel very comfortable with what I discussed with the board,” said Kurki, the college president.

“I know what I was doing was appropriate. I think I am very aware of what I can discuss in executive session and what I can’t,” he said.

But Hill said the attorney general’s office believes that public agencies are no longer entitled to hold private meetings to discuss changes to salary structures and that discussions on actual amounts of salary increases should be held in public.

The attorney general’s office bases its opinion on a 1983 state Court of Appeal ruling that ordered the San Diego City Council to discuss the amounts of salary raises for city executives in public session. The case stemmed from a lawsuit brought by The San Diego Union newspaper.

Hill said the attorney general’s office considers that ruling the guideline for public agencies taking actions on salary changes.

“We are giving a fair amount of credibility to it. It would seem to be the case that controls,” Hill said.