Acting Chief Will Head Community College District : Education: Neil Yoneji is chosen as chancellor after nine-month search. Familiarity with dire fiscal situation is cited.

After a nine-month nationwide search, trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District have chosen a high-ranking insider to be chancellor of the nine-campus system, officials said Thursday.

Neil Yoneji, the district’s top fiscal officer who has been interim chancellor since December, was picked largely because among the three finalists for the post he was viewed as being best suited to guide the district through its tough financial times, board President Kenneth Washington said.

“What probably tipped the balance in his favor was the recognition that we are in such dire straits fiscally and that probably 90% of our problems would in time waft away if we had adequate resources,” Washington said.

Details of the deal, including salary and the length of the contract, will be worked out and finalized at the board’s next meeting Sept. 21, Washington said.

Yoneji, 50, first worked for the Los Angeles district from 1973 to 1981, when he left for a post at the Mt. San Jacinto Community College District. In 1987, he was hired to head financial services for the Saddleback Community College District in Orange County, then rejoined the Los Angeles district--the nation’s largest--as vice chancellor for business services in March, 1991.

Assuming the district’s financial reins at a time of shrinking state support, rising fees and falling enrollment, Yoneji is widely credited with helping trustees cut administrative and other costs to keep the district solvent. He also engineered a complex, controversial headquarters building swap last year that enabled the district to save money, at least in the short term.

Trustees chose Yoneji to fill in when Chancellor Donald G. Phelps resigned last year to take a teaching post at the University of Texas. The district’s quest for a permanent replacement began in February, when trustees appointed a committee of district employees and community leaders and allocated $30,000 to hire an executive search firm, Korn Ferry International.

Deep divisions on the seven-member board slowed the appointment, district sources said. Yoneji’s toughest competition came from Cedric A. Sampson, a former district professor and administrator who is president of the 7,500-student College of the Redwoods in Eureka, sources said.

A third finalist, Ernie Martinez, an administrator of the State University of New York, was added when another highly rated candidate dropped out. That candidate, San Diego Community College District Chancellor Augustine Gallego, withdrew over salary issues, the sources said. District officials expect to pay about $120,000 a year.

Trustees reportedly offered Yoneji the job after their most recent closed session last week but he did not agree to accept until this week, sources said. One possible stumbling block is the fact that the offer was for a two-year period, shorter than what Yoneji wanted, sources said.

Washington said the length of the contract is still subject to negotiation and predicted that Yoneji’s contract will be approved on a unanimous board vote.

Yoneji, a Japanese American born in Hawaii, will be the second minority to head the ethnically diverse district. Slightly more than 35% of the district’s 102,000 students are Latino while almost 18% are African American and 17% are Asian American.

Times staff writer John Chandler contributed to this report.