Community Colleges
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* “Valley Colleges Make Cuts to Pay the Piper” (Aug. 17) describes the financial difficulties of the LACCD. In spite of the additional funds given the community colleges last year, this year eight of the nine colleges in the district have a serious shortfall and will be forced to cut many hundreds of courses.
Surely a problem of this magnitude has multiple causes, including serious mismanagement at the district level. One cause, perhaps overlooked by the electorate, is the behavior of the Board of Trustees. The same article reports that the board voted a 9% raise for the faculty with additional 7% raises in each of the next two years. Readers may wonder why the trustees, who obviously do not deserve our trust, would be that fiscally irresponsible. It is because few of us bother to vote in an election for college trustees, and those who do seldom find out the policies of the candidates for whom we vote. As a consequence, the AFT, the teachers union, can easily control the outcomes of the elections by financial support of the candidates who will vote with them.
But it is OK. Do not bother to vote in the trustee elections. No one cares and no one will get hurt--except the community college students.
M. STEPHEN SHELDON
Studio City
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