Faculty Group Endorses 3 for Community College Board : Election: A dispute on overtime pay appears to have spurred involvement by Cerritos Community College educators. A new board would be more responsive to their concerns, they say.

For the first time in at least 30 years, faculty members at Cerritos Community College are involved in the election of the college’s Board of Trustees.

Since its inception four months ago, a group called Concerned Faculty, which claims the support of more than half of the college’s 265 full-time faculty members, has raised $11,000 that it intends to spend on campaigning for three candidates it has endorsed.

“Our goal is to establish a relationship of trust with the board that we appear unable to establish with current board members,” said Donna Miller, an associate professor of speech communications on the campus and a spokeswoman for the group.

The endorsed candidates--Ada Steenhoek, Marty Supple and Ted Edmiston--are among five challengers facing three incumbents for seats on the eight-member board. Of the four available seats, one is occupied by a trustee--Harold Tredway--who is retiring after 25 years on the board. The Cerritos College election is one of several area community college trustee elections scheduled Nov. 5.

Current board members say they are completely worthy of trust and do not need to be replaced.

Whatever the case, the furor seems to have arisen following a May 28 memo by college President Ernest A. Martinez in which he announced the elimination of overtime pay for instructors who teach extra classes or summer sessions. Because of budget constraints, Martinez wrote, the established overtime pay system would be eliminated in fall of 1991, and a reduced form of compensation implemented.

“We are faced with a time of reduced state support for all state-funded services, including community college education,” Martinez wrote in the widely circulated memo. “At Cerritos College we are dependent upon the state for at least 85% of our revenues. A state budget crisis of this magnitude is having a disastrous effect upon us. . . . The Cerritos family has never faced a crisis of this magnitude in its 36-year history, and our future hangs in the balance.”

Martinez was off-campus last week and could not be reached for comment. According to spokesman Mark Wallace, the college--which runs on an annual budget of about $50.5 million--has responded to the crisis in part by dipping into its reserve fund for the second time in as many years.

In addition, he said, the institution slashed summer classes by about 30% this year, curtailed building improvements, offered employees early retirement and set up a task force to examine cuts in administrative costs.

Faculty members say they were incensed by Martinez’s memo because it bypassed long-established governance procedures under which administrators negotiate with teachers on issues of pay. They were further incensed, they said, a short time later when the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to endorse the president’s position.

“It was an arbitrary decision,” Miller said. “It bypassed the method by which we had made salary decisions for 30 years.”

Katie Nordbak, one of the incumbent board members seeking reelection, concedes that the matter was not handled correctly by Martinez. “There was an error in the way that happened,” she said. “It looked like an executive decision.”

But the board backed him up, she said, because it believed that overtime pay needed reviewing. And the incident, she said, is isolated in that it doesn’t indicate a pattern of executive action without faculty involvement. “All last year we met with the faculty developing policy under shared governance,” she said. “They’re not saying anything about that now.”

The president eventually relented on the pay issue, Wallace said, referring it to the usual meet-and-confer negotiating process under which it is still being considered.

But the controversy eventually resulted in a whole slew of charges being leveled by the aroused faculty members against current board members, among them:

* That the college is top-heavy, with too many administrators and too few teachers.

* That cuts have been made at the expense of students and to the detriment of the education they receive.

* That faculty members have been asked to bear more than their fair share of the cuts required by the budgetary crunch.

* And that too many board decisions are made in executive session without enough faculty and community involvement.

Administrators and board members deny all of the accusations.

Nonetheless, the Concerned Faculty group recently endorsed the three challengers who, it said, share the organization’s philosophy and goals. Steenhoek is a business consultant and teacher who served on the board from 1981 to 1989; Supple is a former Cerritos College student who now owns a gasoline station across the street from the campus; and Edmiston is a Lakewood chiropractor.

The other challengers are Mary Loya, a retired Cerritos College instructor, and Terry Lambros, an elementary school teacher from Downey.

Besides Nordbak, the incumbents seeking reelection are Ruth Banda, a board member since 1987, and John Moore, who was appointed to the board in 1988 and elected to a partial term in 1989.

Both say the challenge by the teachers has gotten their attention. “I take it very seriously,” said Moore, who expects to spend about $5,000 defending his position. “I wish I had more funding, but my record will stand for itself.”

Said Banda: “We are very uncomfortable. All of their charges are distortions of the truth.”

Cerritos Community College District

Enrollment: 20,500

Areas served: Artesia, Bellflower, Cerritos, Downey, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood, La Mirada and Norwalk.

On the ballot: eight candidates for four seats. One incumbent is not seeking reelection.

INCUMBENTS

Ruth Banda

Board member since 1987

Age: 37

Profession: administrator at Cal State Dominguez Hills

Residence: Bellflower

Remarks: “I was especially proud of the staff of our college district in dealing with the changing community; in going out and soliciting grants and establishing various partnerships with business and industry. (The major task now) is being very watchful of the budget and very careful in determining how our resources are going to be spent. We have to make sure the money is going into the programs and services that our students need the most.”

John Moore

Appointed to board in 1988; elected to partial term in 1989.

Age: 43

Profession: account manager with food company

Residence: Cerritos

Remarks: “We have a very broad overall program. The college is well known for its curriculum. I think the issue is going to be how are we going to address the ever-changing needs of the surrounding community, especially in relationship to how we are going to handle students who are coming back for retraining. We also need to be fiscally conscious.”

Katie Nordbak

Board member since 1969

Age: 63

Profession: court services manager for Orange County Superior Court

Residence: La Mirada

Remarks: “We have had tight budget times, but we have always budgeted resources to maintain our program and hold an emergency reserve. Now we’re in a budget crunch again. We should try to manage our resources to provide for all the needs we have. We have vocational programs, and people are being laid off and need to be retrained. Four-year schools are cutting back on enrollment, adding more applications to community colleges. We need to meet the needs of the community within the financial restraints the state has given us.”

CHALLENGERS

Ted Edmiston

Age: 49

Profession: chiropractor

Residence: Lakewood

Remarks: “(The task) is trying to get the campus community more integrated into the (larger) community. (People need to) give more feedback to the college. Professional educators and politicians and the public are all in different camps; each sees part of a problem. I would like to get all of them into one group to work for one goal, unite the community to resolve problems.”

Terry Lambros

Age: 57

Profession: elementary schoolteacher

Residence: Downey

Remarks: “I believe that Cerritos College is at a crossroads. With the changing demographics in our community, it’s going to need leadership with experience and knowledge from someone who is not afraid to make intimidating decisions that can be devastating if they are not made correctly. We need someone who can face them head-on.”

Mary Loya

Age: 68

Profession: retired Cerritos College instructor

Residence: Downey

Remarks: “The budget and the cuts that have been made are going to hurt people. There has to be good fiscal management. There are many concerns on campus regarding the budget, from students to faculty to administrators. I have been on campus for 15 years. I have represented multicultural student programs and have worked on outreach programs at high schools and elementary schools. I have networked with the community extensively.”

Ada Steenhoek

Board member 1981-89

Age: 52

Profession: business consultant and teacher

Residence: Cerritos

Remarks: “I’m running because students need the best there is to go to college. Life is hard enough without having things harder than they need to be. Since 1986-87 there’s been an increase in administrators. We only have a good school over there--it isn’t the best. I want it to be the best.”

Marty Supple

Age: 37

Profession: gas station owner

Residence: Artesia

Remarks: “I’m a former student at the college. I lived in the area for most of my life and I own the gas station across the street. You hear a lot of things: cuts in summer school, upset faculty, difficulty getting classes. The more I heard, the more I wanted to change the downhill slide of the college. A lot of businesses aren’t doing well and that includes the college. I want to do whatever I can to get the college back on track.”