ELECTIONS / COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT : Deficit Isn’t Only Major Issue Trustee Candidates Face

Like so many elected officials adjusting to daunting revenue shortfalls, trustees of the Ventura County Community College District are scouring their 49-page budget for another $800,000 in savings.

Administrators say there is nowhere left to cut. The $59.6-million spending plan is $3 million less than what the district spent a year ago, and any further cuts could mean staff layoffs or class closures.

But the latest $800,000 deficit is not the only issue confronting trustees of the three-campus district, where the seats of Pete E. Tafoya, Karen M. Boone and Gregory P. Cole will be contested Tuesday.

Of the three incumbents, Tafoya is unopposed and Cole is not seeking reelection. Boone is being challenged by former college administrator John Tallman and businessman Jim Hibbs. And four others are vying for Cole’s empty seat.

Some candidates point to a top-heavy management structure and declining enrollment as the major issues facing the governing board. Others say the district needs to integrate the three campuses--in Oxnard, Ventura and Moorpark--to cut costs and better serve students.

Teachers say they are not getting enough input in the decision-making process. Non-teaching staff members complain that morale is at an all-time low because they have been working without a contract for 16 months.

And students are afraid they will get priced out of a college degree.

“The district has been broken for some time,” Cole said. “It was actually in total disrepair when I came on board five years ago.”

Cole said many of the district’s problems have been resolved since he took the dais in 1989.

The board has installed some measure of financial control that was found lacking after the indictment of a former trustee, has gotten rid of a chancellor and two college presidents and has brought in fiscal managers to rein in excessive spending, he said.

“Reform does take some time, but I think some of the current issues have been the outgrowth of some of the reforms we put in place,” Cole said. “There’s a lot more to do.”

In Area 5, where Tafoya is running uncontested, the trustee agrees that the district still has problems that need to be solved.

“Our reserves are not that high and we continue to see cutbacks in education year after year,” he said. “The four years I’ve been in office we have seen cuts of 1% to 4% each year.”

In the Area 1 seat, Boone, 37, represents Ventura, Saticoy, El Rio and north Oxnard.

The incumbent was appointed to the five-member governing board in 1992, when Trustee Gregory Kampf resigned to accept an administrative job in Northern California. Boone beat out 10 other applicants for the job when she was appointed in May, 1992.

Boone said she is emphasizing fiscal responsibility in her campaign.

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She was one of three trustees to support the final budget that included the $800,000 in revenues the district lost when Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed state legislation that would have provided millions of dollars to community colleges to offset sinking property tax revenues.

She said she would not touch the district’s cash reserves to make up the deficit, but would support using an anticipated health insurance refund to cover the shortfall. Boone also wants to establish a common numbering system for the three campuses so classes are more easily transferable.

“Our condition has improved in the last two years, but we’re not there yet,” Boone said. “I’d like to see us get off the state chancellor’s watch list.”

The district was placed on a statewide watch list when it fell below the cash reserves required by education officials in Sacramento.

In the Area 1 contest, Tallman, who was a vice chancellor in the Ventura County Community College District for 10 years, has been the most critical of the district’s spending and budgeting policies. He also complained that trustees passed the 1994-95 budget knowing Gov. Pete Wilson would probably veto the community college funding legislation.

“They still don’t have a budget,” said Tallman, 64.

Jim Hibbs, the third Area 1 contender, is a 50-year-old former major league baseball player who has since taught high school, sold real estate and served as executive director of the Ventura College Foundation.

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Hibbs said he is most concerned with what he sees as the district’s failure to serve its students. For example, he said, they should be able to enroll more easily, books and other supplies should be less expensive, and core classes should be made more widely available.

“You’ve got to go out there and recruit, and sell the importance of higher education,” Hibbs said.

Of the three, Tallman leads in campaign fund-raising. He reported total contributions of $11,671, more than double the $5,048 that Boone has collected. Hibbs filed a form promising to spend less than $1,000 on his campaign.

The Area 2 seat vacated by Cole represents the Oxnard Plain, Thousand Oaks and the Santa Rosa Valley.

In that race, former Moorpark College career counselor Annette Broersman Burrows is up against clinical psychologist Donald W. Kingdon, orthodontist Norman J. Nagel and attorney Donald E. Stevens.

In January, Burrows, 40, quit her job at Moorpark College after 10 years because of a dispute with the college president. She now works as director of career planning at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

She said the level of student services has dropped dramatically over the years, and that the district should redouble its efforts to help students transfer to four-year schools. Burrows suggests slashing the number of administrators and consolidating central district services to avoid duplication.

“If you’re looking at a budget that is in as much trouble as ours is in, you have to stop putting Band-Aids on it and look at long-term solutions,” Burrows said.

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Kingdon works as chief of the child and adolescent services division at the Ventura County Department of Mental Health Services. He said restructuring district finances and kicking politics out of the board meetings are his top goals.

He criticized district officials for ignoring suggestions made by the 1993-94 Ventura County grand jury, which concluded this summer that the district mismanaged its money. Kingdon also suggested that college presidents be given more authority and that the administration be downsized.

“We can’t cut any more at the colleges,” said Kingdon, 42. “If further cuts are necessary, it’s probably going to happen in other places such as the district office.”

Nagel, who decided to move to Ventura County after a stint in the U.S. Navy, has practiced orthodontics in Thousand Oaks for more than 20 years. He said, among other things, that the district should increase its grant-writing efforts to increase revenues.

Like Hibbs in Area 1, Nagel suggests a more aggressive recruiting campaign to beef up enrollments. He also said district officials should work harder with Joyce Kennedy, director of the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge, at getting a public university built locally.

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“Nobody at the college district level seems to have a good idea of where that project stands at the state level,” said Nagel, 52.

Thousand Oaks attorney Stevens bemoaned the district’s poor record of student transfers to Cal State or University of California campuses.

Fewer than three out of 20 students transfer to public universities in California, far below the 19% state average and the national average of 22%, according to district records.

Stevens also recommended downsizing the administration, establishing a stronger coalition with local employers and integrating course offerings at the three campuses to save money and make transferring simpler.

“The entire organization needs to be re-examined, to the end of improving education for the students,” Stevens said.

Of the four Area 2 candidates, Nagel has collected nearly $20,000 for his campaign--far more than any of his competitors have to spend. Almost half of Nagel’s war chest, however, came from a personal loan of $10,000 to his campaign.

Kingdon is the only other of the four candidates doing any serious fund-raising. He reported contributions of $7,961. Burrows and Stevens have said they will not spend more than $1,000 each on their campaigns.

Many of those outside the campaign see signs of trouble on the existing board.

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Leanne Colvin, chapter president of the Service Employees International Union Local 535, which represents about 350 non-teaching staff members, said the board has a history of not working cohesively.

She complains that the classified employees union has been without a contract since July, 1993, while administrators keep adding accountants and other workers to the district payroll.

“The board doesn’t work together,” said Colvin, an administrative aide at Moorpark College. “You just never know what’s going to happen next. Every board meeting holds some surprise because they’re very fractured and they seem to fight themselves a lot.”

Barbara Hoffman, the teachers union president, is less unhappy with the district. Her group won a 1% raise earlier this year after lengthy negotiations.

Still, Hoffman said she is worried that teachers seem to be getting shut out of the decision-making processes, despite state laws designed to include discussion among all parties on major issues.

“The participation we have is in name only,” Hoffman said. “If you’re in the room, they consider that participation.”

Teachers and staff members are not the only ones complaining about the board of trustees.

Students at Moorpark, Ventura and Oxnard colleges are afraid of the increasing cost of a community college education, the availability of classes needed to transfer to universities and the price of books and other classroom materials.

“It frustrates me,” said Ruby Stewart, a journalism major at Oxnard College. “A lot of us students plan to graduate at a certain time, and if we can’t get the classes we need, it delays graduating.”

Moorpark College business major Justin McQueen said he has several concerns he wishes the trustees would address.

“Our library needs to be open more because we don’t always have a place to study in the late hours,” the 19-year-old said. “And bookstore prices are always a problem. They charge way too much for certain things.”