Board Moves to Fire Moorpark College Head : Personnel: A second administrator faces a reprimand over concerns of improper financial dealings with a private foundation.

Ventura County Community College District trustees are moving to fire Moorpark College President Stanley L. Bowers in the wake of questionable financial dealings between the college and its private foundation.

The trustees also intend to reprimand Lawrence Lloyd, the college’s vice president for administrative services, for his role in the transactions.

Citing the confidentiality of personnel matters, the trustees refused to name either man when they voted 4 to 0 just before midnight Tuesday to notify them of the impending actions. The board identified them only by their Social Security numbers.

However, The Times learned that the actions were against Bowers and Lloyd. They can appeal the matter in a closed hearing before the trustees before final action is taken.

Trustees refused to comment about the men or the personnel actions that climaxed a three-hour closed meeting. Trustee Gregory Cole said the district’s attorney, Stuart W. Rudnick, had advised board members to keep the matter confidential.

The emphasis on secrecy, prompted partly by fears of possible lawsuits, produced an unusually terse announcement by board Chairman Timothy Hirschberg at the end of the closed meeting, in which he described Bowers and Lloyd only by their employee numbers.

Contacted Wednesday night, Bowers said:

“I would hope that the trustees look to their own consciences and souls and their own sense of ethics in the context of what really occurred at Moorpark College. It’s dubious they will find the questionable behavior they are challenging.”

Bowers said it was too early to say how he will respond to the trustees’ action. He has heavy support from the college’s faculty, he said.

“We have a great college and it’s been beat up real badly,” Bowers said. “And I’ve been beat up.”

Lloyd refused to comment on the trustees’ actions, channeling all inquiries through Gerald Olsen, Moorpark College public information officer.

“He has no comment at this time,” Olsen said.

Bowers, 56, who earns $94,559 a year, has a contract with the district that expires in June, 1992. The trustees’ action is a formal notice that the board intends to terminate the contract before then.

However, sources in the district said Bowers might not be fired outright. They said he might be asked to resign as college president and assume a teaching position with the district. Administrators are allowed to teach if they resign, sources said.

For Lloyd, who earns $81,020 a year, a formal reprimand would involve a document placed in his personnel file.

For Bowers, the trustees’ action caps six months of troubles with district officials. In December, trustees reprimanded him for improperly transferring $51,000 in campus bookstore profits to the Moorpark College Foundation, which spent some of the money on new furniture for Bowers’ office and a country club membership for him.

At the time, trustees contended that the transfers were improper because bookstore profits must be spent to benefit students.

Lloyd sat on a committee that approved the transfers, which occurred for two years beginning in mid-1988.

The Ventura County district attorney’s office began an inquiry into Bowers’ role in the transfers in December, and the matter remains open, officials said Wednesday.

After the reprimand, the foundation returned $16,000. But Bowers has steadfastly maintained that there was nothing improper about the transfers.

He was also under fire for channeling $3,152 in bookstore profits to Ingrid Ely, the college’s former alumni association president, to pay for travel. Ely and her husband, Trustee James T. (Tom) Ely, are being tried on conspiracy and embezzlement charges.

It was during the investigation of the Elys that questions arose about Bowers’ involvement in the transfers of money to the foundation. Then, in the wake of Bowers’ reprimand, another scandal emerged when members of the foundation, concerned about its financial relationship with the college, asked for an audit.

The audit earlier this year turned up evidence that Bowers and Lloyd, 57, were behind a financial transaction in which money was juggled between the college and the foundation.

Trustees, who learned of the transaction earlier this month, said it involved funneling $25,000 in salary for two district employees through the foundation rather than the college. The apparent reason, they said, was to sidestep pension and union regulations.

The two employees were paid in 1989 and 1990 to coordinate a program that assists private businesses by offering college courses tailored to their needs.

When the funding arrangement surfaced, Hirschberg called it a “deliberate scheme to skirt the clear dictates of the Education Code and other college financial regulations.”

Bowers and Lloyd insisted that the financial arrangement was proper and had been approved by Tom Kimberling, the district’s vice chancellor of administrative services. Kimberling, under fire for his supervision of district money, resigned last week after being sentenced to 60 days in jail for beating his wife.

“This was a genuine effort to assist the college,” Bowers said. “We were not being devious.” He said that foundation members supported the unusual method of payment to college employees and that it didn’t deviate from state regulation or policy.

Last week, Rudnick issued a confidential report to the board indicating that Bowers’ and Lloyd’s conduct “rises to the level of willful misconduct.” The report stated that Lloyd developed the funding scheme and Bowers consented to it, although they knew that it violated state education and government codes. However, no evidence of illegal activity was found.