Panel Votes No Confidence in Head of Compton College : Education: Academic Senate reacts in anger to an audit showing $500,000 in federal funds being misspent. College’s president says he is not to blame.

Furious about an audit that found Compton Community College misspent close to $500,000 in federal funds, the college’s 15-member Academic Senate on Tuesday announced a vote of no confidence against college President Warren A. Washington and others in the college’s administration.

“I’m not going to sit back and watch this place go in the toilet,” David Horne, Academic Senate president, told the board at an emotionally charged meeting Tuesday night.

“This institution is being destroyed because people have acted illegally,” said Horne, who called Washington a “cancer to the institution” and joined several speakers in urging the board to fire the college president.

Two board members already have demanded that Washington step down, and the panel agreed Tuesday to discuss the matter Feb. 23. But Washington denounced the effort, saying that “after 17 years of exemplary service,” he found the request “astounding.”

At the meeting, several speakers demanded a response to the audit, which has prompted the U.S. Department of Education to place a hold on all pending applications for federal funding submitted by the college.

The audit, by Coopers & Lybrand, found that the 6,000-student college misspent close to $500,000 in federal money that was earmarked for low-income students. The probe was ordered last fall after Department of Education officials uncovered similar instances of questionable spending in three programs on campus.

Among other things, auditors found that the college paid about $80,000 over a two-year period to nine employees who did no work for the programs, and that the programs’ director hired relatives who were not qualified for their jobs.

Auditors also said federal money was spent on improper items such as office furniture, building improvements and clothing, and they found that many participants in the programs were not eligible. In one program, four of five students could not provide documentation that they were from low-income families.

Further, the audit found payments to 22 employees for whom there were no records of employment, such as resumes or job applications. The employees apparently were given jobs without going through the proper hiring process, the audit said.

Since 1989, the education department has provided $1.5 million in grants for the programs, designed for students at nearby high schools and for first-generation college students. The programs provide tutoring, counseling and career advice to those attending or planning to attend the campus.

Some trustees last week called for swift action to save the college’s reputation among state and federal agencies, which fund about a quarter of the college’s $12-million budget. Others on campus were concerned that the audit would hamper upcoming efforts to renew the college’s accreditation with the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, which is pivotal to its eligibility for public funds.

But Washington said in an interview last week that he thought the college could provide documentation for many of the questioned expenses, saying he would discuss the audit this week with the four administrators responsible.

He admitted that he might not always have been aware of what was happening in those programs because “there are several layers of management” between a college president and some administrators.