College Aid Checks Are Delayed : Oxnard: Trustees resist hiring more clerks to clear a backlog holding up students’ funds. Two- thirds of applications haven’t been processed.

Hundreds of Oxnard College students are struggling through this fall semester without financial aid because there are not enough clerks at the office to process the glut of applications.

College Vice President Ronald Jackson said that applications for two-thirds of the more than 1,700 students seeking grants are still not processed.

Last week he asked trustees for emergency funds to hire additional help at the office, which this year has more than 1,100 financial aid applications pending.

But faced with a severe budget crisis, which has already forced the district to delay payments on teacher benefits and capital improvement projects, the board resisted.

Trustee Pete E. Tafoya, who represents the Oxnard area on the Ventura County Community College District governing board, urged his board colleagues to allow Jackson to do whatever is necessary to fix the problem--even if that means using reserves to hire more employees.

“We’re talking about a large percentage of students,” Tafoya said. “If you can’t get them in school, you can’t educate them. So this is a major issue.”

The trustees are set to discuss the matter again next month.

Roughly one quarter of the students have applied for financial aid this semester. Of those, Jackson said, fewer than 600 applications have been completed by the office.

A financial aid task force has been studying the staff shortages at all three campuses, Chancellor Thomas G. Lakin said. That committee is scheduled to report on its findings next week.

The financial aid clerks at Moorpark and Ventura colleges also are struggling with increased applications, but they have not fallen as far behind as those in Oxnard, officials said.

At Ventura College, President Jesus Carreon opted not to fill a vacant library clerk position in favor of another financial aid staffer.

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Earlier this school year, the Oxnard College financial aid office cut down the hours spent helping students at the counter so workers could spend afternoons processing applications, said financial aid officer Patricia Gage.

“We’re still behind, but we’re making progress,” Gage said last week. “We just have more and more people applying.”

Another cause for delays, she said, is an increasing amount of government regulation required for each application packet.

“The office is run efficiently; that’s not the problem,” said Gage, who oversees three clerks. “We just don’t have enough staff to handle the volume.”

Bilingual education student Vanessa Calderon said she has been waiting weeks for financial aid. Last year there was a check awaiting her when she registered. “They haven’t given any reason for the delay. But once, they told me they needed more people in the office,” Calderon, 20, said. “Sometimes I have to borrow money from my friends or relatives.”

David Dickerson said that every year it seems to get more difficult applying for and receiving state or federal grants.

“They have been having a lot of trouble with it,” the 23-year-old art major said. “But my grant was only one day late. There’s quite a few people that were a lot later, so I was pretty lucky.”

A steady stream of students went through the financial aid office on a recent afternoon. Most of those said they were glad to be considered for any help at all.

“I’ve been waiting since August, but they’ve been backed up,” said Akea Smith, a 23-year-old physical fitness major. “It’s been taking awhile, but everything’s getting pieced together little by little.”

Other students spent part of that afternoon getting their financial aid applications ready for the spring semester.

“So far, so good,” said Patty Duran, a 20-year-old psychology major who just dropped off her paperwork for a spring 1995 grant package. “But I still have to take a test to make sure I qualify.”

Gage said she would need as many as nine clerks to run the office more efficiently.

“I’d be happy to get one,” she said.