Colleges Given More Budget Leash

Coupled with stern warnings about accountability, the Ventura County Community College District chancellor this week lifted restrictions on the way the colleges spend their money.

The new procedure, hailed as a sign of the district’s improved financial health, gives college presidents--for the first time in five years--discretion in how they spend budgeted money.

“It is an exciting and long overdue approach to funding,” said Gary Morgan, president of the group that represents Oxnard College’s faculty. “Colleges have to have the ability to make quick decisions without having to go through the bureaucratic red tape we have been tied up in in the past.”

Although eager to fulfill his promises to give the district’s three college presidents more control over their campuses, Chancellor Philip Westin said he intends to hold each personally accountable for their spending.

“I am trying to be real clear on that,” he said. “They will be evaluated on whether or not they are spending more dollars than they’ve got.”

In the past, college presidents have had limited control over their budgets.

If, for instance, an instructor quit in the middle of the academic year, the colleges were prohibited from spending that salary on supplies. Any transfers of money from one account to another had to be first approved by the board.

When those measures went into effect in 1991, the then-new chancellor--Thomas Lakin, who died in 1994--was under pressure to regain fiscal control of a district wracked by scandal.

With budget reserves at less than 1%, it was the district’s third year on the state’s watch list for colleges on the brink of financial ruin. And several scandals, including a college president who was demoted amid charges of mismanagement, had led to a tightening of control at the district level.

As a result, any money that was not spent on designated expenses went to boost reserves.

College presidents say the restrictions gave them no room to maneuver or respond to emergency needs, such as adding a new class to meet student demand.

“There was no wiggle room for you to do anything,” said Larry Calderon, interim president of Ventura College, “and if you can’t wiggle . . . you are being told what to do. That’s the way it was.”

But with reserves at more than 5% at the end of last year, the highest percentage since 1988--the district can now afford to loosen its controls, said Jeff Marsee, vice president of administrative services.

Trustee Norm Nagel applauded the decision, saying, “We cannot micromanage each college’s little problems.”

Other trustees are more cautious about Westin’s decentralization plan.

“I’m supportive of allowing the colleges to spend their money allocation in ways that best affect the district, but we must make sure they . . . are accountable,” said trustee Allan Jacobs.

The district divides the money it collects among the colleges based on such things as personnel costs, operating expenses and the equivalent number of full-time students based on full- and part-time enrollment.

Ventura College gets about $21 million, Moorpark College nearly $20.2 million, and Oxnard College about $11.6 million.

Administrators say the new policy will let them better serve their students.

“As presidents working with our staff, we have a better handle on what the needs are,” said Oxnard College President Elise Schneider.

When an Oxnard College math teacher took an emergency leave last summer, Morgan said, the college had to wait two months for board approval to replace the instructor.

“In the future, we will not have to do that. It will be automatic, and that is much more student centered than accountant centered,” he said.