Spending Plan Would Benefit Valley College : Trustees: The board considers a formula that would give the campus $1 million to restore classes and make repairs. Smaller campuses may suffer.

Los Angeles Community College District trustees are considering a new funding distribution formula that could give Valley College at least $1 million more a year to repair decaying facilities and to restore hundreds of classes.

Under such a formula, “allocations have a clear relationship to funds generated,” Vice Chancellor Neil Yoneji told the Board of Trustees on Tuesday.

The seven-member board will vote on the proposal Wednesday.

The plan, Yoneji said, more closely resembles the method the state uses in allocating funds to the nine-campus district. That method is based largely on the enrollment of each school, he said.

Valley College administrators, faculty and students have complained that the Van Nuys campus has not received its fair share of district funds for more than a decade, arguing that the college generates between $1 million and $2 million more for the district than it gets back.

The money comes from state support payments, which are based on enrollment. The community college district, which administers the money, has channeled a disproportionate share to smaller or newer colleges to help them, at the expense of bigger, established schools, like 20,000-student Valley College.

As a result, the college has sacrificed student services, clerical and counseling staffs, capital improvements and overall maintenance to provide instructional programs, Valley College President Mary Lee said before the meeting. But during the last two years, instructional programs, too, have felt the effects of the financial crunch and the college has been forced to eliminate hundreds of classes, she said.

“Valley has always been thought of as the rich school that could take care of itself,” Lee said. “That no longer is true.”

In the 1991-92 school year, Valley generated $23.7 million in state funds, based on the number of students it serves. But the college was allocated only $22.1 million by the district.

Last month, about 200 Valley administrators, faculty members and students asked the Board of Trustees for an immediate infusion of $750,000 and an additional $1 million to the school’s proposed budget for 1992-93 to remedy some of the problems.

Lee said the additional funds that Valley College requested would be used for urgent maintenance and to prepare drawings for an air-conditioning system.

Immediate needs include rebuilding the chemistry storeroom, replacing the cracked gym floor, updating computer and lab equipment, painting classrooms and repairing leaky roofs, administrators said.

In the future, Lee said, the college needs to modernize the life sciences building, replace temporary bungalows with permanent classrooms and construct several new buildings.

A contingent of about 100 from the Van Nuys campus restated the college’s funding requests Tuesday.

Under Yoneji’s plan, each college would contribute to a funding pool that would be redistributed to colleges based largely on enrollment. He presented variations of the proposal with redistribution pools of from $1 million to $10 million.

Chancellor Donald Phelps and at least three trustees said they favor a pool of between $4 million and $5 million, which would give Valley an extra $1.3 million to $1.4 million a year.

“I was encouraged by the remarks of the chancellor and the board members,” Lee said. “I believe that they are recognizing that Valley College is and has been seriously underfunded and that the equity we are asking for is not unreasonable.”

Even with the biggest pool, Yoneji said, Valley is the one college that comes out of the process with more money, which worries other colleges. All other schools would not get back as much as they contributed.

For example, Lowell Erickson, president of Pierce College in Woodland Hills, said he fears Pierce’s funding could be reduced under the plan.

“The formula’s fine as long as we start at the level of what we’re getting now,” he said. “You really need to start all the colleges out at the same level they are now, and then allocate any extra money.”

Pierce, he said, stands to lose $450,000 under the $5 million redistribution pool as presented by Yoneji. “That would be about 10% to 15% of our classes,” he said.

But Yoneji said he used a worst-case scenario when devising the formula and will consult with all nine college presidents before he makes a final proposal next week.

Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed 10.1% more in state support for the state’s community colleges, he said, and that was not factored into the figures presented.

“The numbers will change as we go through the budget process,” he said. “We want to be careful not to disrupt” operations at the college.

Yoneji said the proposed formula will give the colleges more certainty in planning programs because they will know almost exactly how much money they will receive in any given year.

“I think it is a good vehicle because . . . it increases the level of local decision-making,” Trustee Lindsay Conner said of the plan.

Trustee David Lopez-Lee said he believes the formula will benefit all nine colleges. “We probably can make all of them whole again.”