College Panel to Consider New Plan to Trim Classes : Education: Proposal to drop 300 offerings at three campuses comes after trustees earlier rejected even greater reductions.

Faced with declining enrollment and a need to make budget cuts, trustees of the Ventura County Community College District will consider eliminating 300 classes from its three campuses in Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura.

The proposal comes about a month after the board of trustees, reacting to student protests, shelved plans to drop 400 classes from the three colleges.

Instead, the five-member board directed the college presidents to find savings in supplies, maintenance and travel.

But administrators are returning to the board Tuesday with the recommendation of cutting classes, which they say can be justified with recent declines in enrollment. The plan would also save the district about $650,000, said Jeff Marsee, vice chancellor of administrative services.

Some layoffs of part-time instructors and early retirement of full-time faculty are also expected as a result, he said.

“This is just an adjustment, not a wholesale slaughter,” said Marsee, who noted that the three campuses offer more than 8,000 classes a year. “There’s no reason for us to fund sections where there’s no demand. We have over 100 sections a semester that have less than 15 students.”

According to Marsee, administrators are asking the board to reconsider its decision because college officials this time have prepared statistics to show that higher fees have resulted in lower enrollment levels. Last month, the proposal by administrators to drop classes was not on the board’s meeting agenda, and the trustees were caught off guard by the student protests, he said.

“The board was just caught by surprise last month, and they didn’t want to make a quick decision,” Marsee said.

If the trustees approve the plan, administrators would begin making reductions immediately, and fewer classes will be offered this summer, Marsee said. Classes with low enrollment would be most vulnerable to cuts, but administrators will take into account prerequisite classes needed to transfer to four-year universities, he said.

Board President Gregory P. Cole said he wasn’t sure how the board would vote on the issue, but said trustees want “all avenues explored prior to cutting in the classroom.”

Last month, Cole and other trustees criticized administrators for proposing to cut classes instead of reducing other costs.

“It’s going to be a raucous meeting,” Cole said of Tuesday’s session. “People are going to be looking for scapegoats, but we’re going through a period of change in California, and people are going to have to get used to it.”

Administrators say dropping the classes is necessary because enrollment has decreased by about 5% this semester compared to last semester. Marsee blamed the lower enrollment levels on higher fees, which jumped from $6 a unit to $10 a unit this semester. College officials are also expecting lower enrollments next school year.

Student Trustee Jason Henderson, who helped organize a protest last month against eliminating classes, said the board would be going too far if it decides to drop classes.

“If you start cutting classes, you obviously don’t have a community college anymore,” Henderson said. “I think it’s poor management to turn to cutting classes.”

It would be the first time since Proposition 13 was passed in 1978 that any classes at the three colleges would be eliminated.

Marsee warned that because of decreasing state revenues, the trustees may be forced to cut more classes and lay off more faculty members in the next few months.

On Tuesday, the board also will consider approving Marsee’s recommendation that the district offer early retirement incentives to some faculty members. Administrators will offer the incentives to about 30 to 40 instructors, and about 15 instructors are expected to take advantage of it, Marsee said.

The early retirement plan would save the district $300,000, Marsee said. It would be the third time in three years that the district has offered an early retirement incentive.

Trustees last year trimmed about $2 million from the district’s $62.5-million budget, but avoided cutting staff or classes by slashing areas such as supplies and maintenance.

This year, Marsee said, he expects trustees will have to cut at least $1.8 million from the district’s 1993-94 budget.