College Foundation Plans Reforms Amid Controversy : Education: Decision-making at the Moorpark school’s fund-raising arm is being reorganized to restore trust.

The Moorpark College Foundation, its image tarnished and its fund-raising undercut, has begun a reorganization to tighten record-keeping and make itself accountable to those outside its private boardroom.

The nonprofit foundation, through which money allegedly was funneled improperly, also has begun to distance itself from top Moorpark College officials, who some foundation officials say have misled and misused them.

“The days of nodding heads and saying, ‘That sounds great, let’s do it’ are over,” said foundation Executive Director Jim Niles.

“What’s so irritating to foundation members is that we really got sucked into something inadvertently,” Niles said. “This has personally been very embarrassing. And we aren’t happy about it.”

Since 1979, the handful of business leaders who make up the foundation’s board have quietly raised $1.5 million for the picturesque, 12,000-student community college as it has grown along a ridgeline in Moorpark.

Their donations have provided most of the money for a $500,000 sports stadium and a $100,000 observatory and are paying for the relocation of a teaching zoo to the campus. The donations also fund student scholarships and faculty grants totaling about $20,000 a year.

Each of the foundation’s 21 directors--attorneys, real estate developers and assorted community leaders--contribute at least $1,000 a year to the college and help raise tens of thousands of dollars more through annual golf tournaments, black-tie dinners and a circus.

But since last fall, the foundation’s image has been battered and its integrity questioned as investigations by the county community college district and the district attorney’s office have uncovered questionable financial dealings between the college and its foundation.

Moorpark College President Stanley L. Bowers, who also serves as the president of the foundation, is accused of improperly funneling nearly $80,000 through the foundation between 1988 and 1990, allegedly violating state civil law and employment and pension rules.

College district trustees, who last month notified Bowers that they intend to fire him, have accused the administrator of laundering money through the foundation to obscure its source and to avoid complaints about questionable use of public funds.

One result of the controversy, said Niles, is that contributions to the foundation have plummeted from a projected $200,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30 to about $140,000.

“We’ve been badly distracted by everything that’s happened,” Niles said. “A lot of energy usually donated to fund-raising has been spent reacting to what’s been going on around us.”

The foundation has been so invisible recently--its last meeting was in March--that some members of the Moorpark College faculty fear it may be mortally wounded.

“There are questions here about whether the foundation will survive,” said Clint Harper, head of the physics department. That would be a serious loss, he said, “because they have done a lot of good things for the college that would not have been done otherwise. The publicity they’re getting now is very one-sided.”

But Niles said the foundation is far from dead, and it hopes to rebound after internal reform.

Allegations against Bowers and college Vice President Lawrence G. Lloyd, who also oversees the foundation’s financial affairs, have already forced foundation members to shed the relaxed, trusting manner with which they traditionally did business.

“I think everyone has learned from what has taken place the last year,” said foundation Chairman Michael Mitchell, a Calabasas real estate broker. “There will be more time and effort put into decision-making before final votes, and the college staff will be less involved.”

Historically, Bowers and Lloyd ran the foundation day to day, and the foundation’s board would meet with them just once a month, Mitchell said. But after the reorganization, which should be completed this summer, decisions on spending foundation money will be made by the foundation’s voluntary directors, not college officials, several board members said.

Also, the foundation expects to open its meetings to public inspection for the first time by adding a college district trustee and a faculty member to its board of directors, Niles said. A bill that would require such representation on college foundations is pending before the Legislature, spurred by abuse by foundations at community colleges in Riverside and San Diego counties.

The Moorpark foundation also has begun to shore up the flawed bookkeeping system that failed to red-flag certain transactions that college district trustees now consider improper, Niles said. A quarterly financial report will be provided to both the foundation’s directors and the community college district from now on, he said.

Problems with foundation records were noted by accountant Fred Wilson, whom the foundation hired to audit its books.

In a report dated March 12, Wilson said that “significant deficiencies” exist in foundation bookkeeping. He said the problems could “adversely affect the ability of the foundation to record, process, summarize and report financial data. . . .”

Wilson noted that the foundation did not even have a budget for the 1989-90 fiscal year, though one now exists. “One of the most useful management tools is a sound budget for operations and capital expenditures,” he wrote.

Wilson also reported that the foundation does not have an investment policy or a plan for its assets; that the depositing of even large contributions into interest-bearing accounts was sometimes delayed for weeks; that foundation meeting summaries do not include financial matters, and that foundation executive and finance committees do not keep minutes.

In an interview, Wilson said the problems he found at the foundation “were not severe” and did not threaten the foundation’s assets. “They were similar to the deficiencies that many other small organizations have.”

However, the lack of financial oversight by the foundation left its directors with too little information to defend themselves when they became the center of controversy last fall, they said.

In December, Bowers was reprimanded by trustees for transferring $51,000 in campus bookstore profits to the foundation, which bought new furniture for the president’s office and a country club membership in his name. He also funneled $3,152 in profits to Ingrid Ely, the college’s former alumni association president, to pay for travel. State law requires that bookstore funds be spent for the benefit of students, trustees said.

Last month, after investigating a tip from the foundation itself, the trustees moved to fire Bowers for allegedly sidestepping pension and union regulations by paying two college employees with $25,000 funneled through the foundation. The employees were listed on foundation books not under their own names but under fictitious business names.

Bowers has insisted that his actions were legal and proper except for giving Ely travel funds, which he acknowledges was a mistake. He told trustees that bookstore money was not used to pay for the country club membership or for a $1,500 love seat and sofa for his office.

Niles said that while the foundation did pay for the president’s office furniture and for the North Ranch Country Club membership in Bowers’ name, imprecise bookkeeping makes it impossible to tell whether bookstore profits were used to buy them.

Bowers also has maintained that paying one retired and one part-time employee through the foundation was an effort to keep a good vocational program alive and was approved by district Vice Chancellor Tom Kimberling, who recently resigned under fire for alleged mismanagement.

Several foundation members say they see the dispute between Bowers and the trustees as a personnel matter that will continue to sully the foundation until it is resolved. Bowers’ appeal of his dismissal is scheduled for a hearing on June 18. Lloyd is also expected to respond to an official reprimand at the same meeting in a closed session.

“We want to make sure that we don’t get embroiled in Stan Bowers’ problems with the district,” said past foundation Chairman Thomas Mackel, a Simi Valley developer. “We can be sympathetic, but it will only drag us down if we get involved. . . . I feel he has to be judged on the issues.”

However, some foundation members believe that while Bowers made mistakes in judgment, he has been caught in the college district’s fervor to reform following the scandal involving Trustee James T. (Tom) Ely. The trustee and his wife, Ingrid, are on trial for allegedly padding travel vouchers with $15,000 in fraudulent expenses.

“Dr. Bowers is a man of integrity and if what he did was wrong, anybody could have done wrong,” said Charles Temple Jr., a former IBM executive who was a principal fund-raiser for the college observatory. “And if you weigh all this against some of the good we’ve done, it’s pretty small potatoes.”

Phillip Vein, a development consultant, agreed. “It’s like Mayor Bradley in Los Angeles. He signed a bill he didn’t even read. It happens,” Vein said.

Physics professor Harper, who heads a committee supporting Bowers, said that both the college president and the foundation have taken a beating that was not justified.

“Dr. Bowers’ activities with the foundation represent a major accomplishment,” Harper said. “He was instrumental in its formation and continued with it as president. They have completed two major facilities, and you just don’t see a lot of that at community colleges.”

The foundation also has contributed to the college’s exotic animal training program, unique in the state, its pace-setting laser-optics program and a new class that teaches students how to take medical X-rays, Harper said.

Yet, foundation directors say they have come away from the trauma of the last year with an understanding that they must be responsible for the affairs of their organization.

“This has just been a nightmare of publicity,” Niles said. “But never again are we going to be sitting there scratching our heads and asking each other, ‘How did this happen?’ ”