Method of Payment to 2 Employees Questioned : Finances: A college district official says it appears Moorpark campus might have channeled the salaries through a nonprofit foundation.

Ventura County Community College District officials are questioning whether Moorpark College and its private foundation may have improperly juggled college funds in paying out about $25,000 in salary to two employees.

District Board President Timothy Hirschberg said Thursday that the board has learned that the money might have been channeled improperly from Moorpark College through the foundation to pay the employees.

He said it appears the college paid the two for their services out of foundation funds during 1989 and 1990 to circumvent regulations that would have made it improper to pay them from college funds.

The two worked for the college’s Company Specific Education and Training Program, which aids businesses in the east end of the county by offering courses tailored to the needs of employees. The two employees hired instructors for the classes.

Hirschberg said the reasons the two were paid from foundation money are contained in a March 27 memo by Lawrence Lloyd, Moorpark College vice president in charge of administrative services.

The memo suggests, according to Hirschberg, that union contract restrictions regarding part-time workers could be circumvented by channeling one employee’s pay through the foundation. The other employee was retired, he said, and a loss of pension benefits could be skirted by using the foundation route.

Hirschberg declined to release the memo Thursday, as did Chancellor Barbara Derryberry and James Niles, executive director of the foundation. Niles also declined to discuss it.

The Times, however, learned the contents of the memo from a source who refused to be identified. In the memo, Lloyd indicated that he thought the financial arrangement had the approval of the foundation’s executive committee.

The financial arrangement surfaced during an audit instigated by foundation board members. Hirschberg said he learned of it this week, and district officials are expected to discuss it at a closed session Tuesday.

Tom Kimberling, the district’s vice chancellor for administrative services who handles district finances, could not be reached. Nor could Lloyd or Moorpark College President Stan Bowers, both on vacation.

Bowers was reprimanded by the board in December for improperly transferring $16,000 in campus bookstore profits to the Moorpark College Foundation, a nonprofit group that raises money for the college. The foundation returned the money earlier this year.

Bowers also was criticized for funneling another $3,000 in bookstore profits to Ingrid Ely, the college’s former alumni association president, to pay for travel.

The matter surfaced last year during an investigation of community college Trustee James T. (Tom) Ely. He is awaiting trial on embezzlement and conspiracy charges stemming from the alleged filing of false travel claims with the district.

Bowers’ role in the transfers is still the focus of an inquiry by the Ventura County district attorney’s office.

Hirschberg said he was angry and disappointed by the latest financial disclosure at the college.

“The board has tried to set strict standards for honest accounting of public funds,” he said. “This falls far short of that.”

He said it is unclear at this point who might be responsible for paying the employees from foundation funds. The two employees, whom he declined to name, were not at fault, he said.

He said that if the employees were running a college program, they should have been paid from college funds, not from money channeled through the foundation.

“It looks like the foundation uncovered a deliberate scheme to skirt the clear dictates of the education code and other college financial regulations,” he said. “I see this as a breach of public trust.”

Wayne Lee, a foundation board member, said the board is “not very happy” about the salaries being channeled through the foundation. He said the board has formed a committee to carry out its own internal review of the matter.

The current issue surfaced, Lee said, because board members were not satisfied that a proper financial review had been done of the foundation’s relationship with the college in the wake of Bower’s reprimand. He said that out of that concern grew the audit and Lloyd’s letter of explanation.

District board member Gregory Cole deplored the funneling of public money through the foundation to pay the employees.

“Once the public money goes from the college to the foundation, the board has no oversight,” he said.