Colleges to Fight for More Prop. 203 Funds

Outraged by what they are calling an unequal distribution of money from a statewide bond measure, Ventura County community college trustees are preparing to battle state officials for a greater share of the pie.

Ventura College instructor Yvonne Bodle, a member of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors, is expected to raise the issue at a state board meeting today in Sacramento. She said Wednesday that the board never received a final list of projects seeking funding.

As the Ventura County district representative, Bodle said she will demand to know why Oxnard College’s request for nearly $1 million was denied.

In addition, trustees have insisted that Chancellor Philip Westin explore ways to fight the decision to give Ventura County only $4.5 million in Proposition 203 funds, despite multimillion-dollar construction projects at all three of the district’s colleges.

Approved in March by 62% of the state’s voters, the measure authorized $300 million to be spent on facilities at 106 community colleges in the state.

In a heated discussion at Tuesday night’s board meeting, some Ventura County trustees blamed “backdoor deal making” for a distribution plan that left some college districts with as much as $28.8 million and others as little $155,490 to spend on deteriorating facilities and equipment.

“I don’t think we should let [those guys] off the hook,” trustee Timothy Hirschberg said. “What’s lost in all this deal making is Oxnard College. If any college is the poster child for capital outlay projects, it is Oxnard.”

Even with the $4.5 million--which will go to equip new math and science buildings at Moorpark and Oxnard colleges, and to remodel or tear down the abandoned buildings--the district still faces a $1.3-million shortfall to complete the projects.

And Oxnard College’s request for nearly $976,364 to modify its existing chemistry labs was denied.

“I don’t know what we are going to do,” Oxnard College President Ruth Hemming said. “But we are going to have to find a way to come up with the money.”

Of the 50 community college districts to receive funding, Ventura County falls near the middle, with 29 receiving less. Twenty-one districts received no Proposition 203 funding.

But trustees were particularly angered by the highest awards, such as $28.8 million allocated for the Pasadena Area Community College District, which only has one college. And Chabot-Las Positas Community College District, east of San Francisco, received $27.7 million, the second highest amount.

State Chancellor David Mertes said Ventura County went through the same approval process as all of the districts.

The state chancellor’s office first prioritizes all proposed projects by need, which is based on health and safety concerns, space requirements and other factors. Pasadena and Chabot-Las Positas received more money because they had demonstrated a greater need, Mertes said.

The list is then approved by the state Board of Governors, the California State Post Secondary Education Committee, the California Department of Finance, legislative analysts, and both the Assembly and Senate before being added to the governor’s budget.

But Bodle said the final list of Proposition 203 projects never made it to the Board of Governors.

“The Board of Governors was in the dark on this. They sent a two-page list to the Legislature--they should have sent one to us, too,” she said.

Mertes, however, said each project has been reviewed by the board in the past.

“There [were] opportunities for the district to appeal and make their case,” he added.

“If the Ventura County Community College District feels they were treated unfairly, the appropriate step for them to take is to contact our office with the evidence. . . . It is absolutely irresponsible for the district to make claims that they were treated unfairly to the press.”

But local trustees are particularly dismayed that Oxnard College--which has struggled for more than decade to obtain money for its new Letters & Science Building--received no Proposition 203 funding.

The building is scheduled to open this fall, but the lack of Proposition 203 dollars leaves the district with no money to equip and remodel chemistry labs in the old science building. Westin said he was told by state officials after the money had been distributed that Oxnard’s application was incomplete.

“We chose not to file [one form] because we didn’t think we were supposed to,” he said. “We didn’t hear one word about it. The next thing we knew, we were not on the list.”

But a state official said Wednesday that the district had originally filed Oxnard’s application under the wrong category, which had recently changed, and needed to reapply.

“[The district is] supposed to monitor that at the chancellor’s office,” said Melanie Bedwell, a spokeswoman for the state chancellor’s office.

Westin said he plans to determine why the district didn’t come away with more funds.

“The next thing I will do is try to find out what happened,” he said, “if it was on the table and that’s the way it goes or if it was it was backdoor deal making. I don’t know. I need to find out.”