MISSION VIEJO : Pay Deadlock Shapes Saddleback Races

With Saddleback Community College District teachers deadlocked with administrators over a proposed 10% pay hike, the Nov. 3 election could change the face of the seven-member Board of Trustees.

In the final weeks before the election, eight challengers and four longtime incumbents are battling over the faculty pay-raise issue as well as how to manage the district budget as enrollment growth outpaces state funding.

The Saddleback Community College Faculty Assn., which has squared off against the administration over the pay issue for nearly two years, is supporting four candidates financially. The quartet hopes to oust incumbents who oppose a pay hike now.

“A real issue is who’s going to control the district,” said Trustee Robert L. “Bob” Moore, who was first elected to the board in 1979. “We’re not going to get any more money from the state. . . . We’d like to pay them more money, but a dollar only goes so far.”

At $56,100, faculty members receive the highest average salary of any community college professors in the state, according to recent studies.

“We’re doing all we can to make sure we can keep our doors open and provide the education that’s needed,” said Trustee Harriett S. Walther, who has served on the board since the late 1970s. “We’re very pleased we have been able to avoid any layoffs of full-time faculty and classified staff.”

But the challengers, who are contesting the seats held by Moore, Walther, John C. Connolly and Shirley Gellatly, charge that board members have adopted a faculty salary freeze and reduced course offerings through mismanagement.

“There’s enough money to grant pay raises if you go about it in a proper manner,” said challenger John S. Williams, a deputy county marshal endorsed by the faculty association.

To offset the cost of a pay hike, Williams has proposed splitting the district into two jurisdictions, one each for Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges. The current administration would be dismantled.

Challengers Steven J. Frogue, Lee Rhodes and Douglas M. Chapman, have also been endorsed by the teachers union, which represents the 300 full-time professors in the district. Most of the paid members of the union are from Saddleback College.

Remaining challengers include Hassell W. Berry, Asha Knott, Robert W. Moore and Jim Palmer. Voters, regardless of where they live, will choose a candidate in each of the four trustee districts.

“We need to focus a larger percentage of district revenue to the classroom and get those teachers a raise,” said Frogue, a high school history teacher and former part-time Saddleback College professor whose position was eliminated last year because of budget cuts.

“The class offerings have decreased from 2,000 in 1985 to 1,600 now,” said Chapman, a mechanical engineer. “The budget has gone up, so there is no credible argument for cutting back on classes.”

None of the candidates is proposing wholesale layoffs of administrators and non-teaching personnel. Instead, they believe staff reductions can be achieved through attrition, as retirements occur, and by leaving some positions vacant.

“They (the district’s two colleges) should be run more businesslike, making sure that you don’t have waste,” said Robert W. Moore, a candidate in the 7th District, not to be confused with 6th District incumbent Robert L. Moore. “(The current board) has lost sight of what the real goal is.”