Westin’s Contract Extended; Talks With Unions Continue

Ventura County Community College District Chancellor Philip Westin’s contract has been extended through the year 2000, adding an additional year to the pact.

Four trustees voted in favor of the contract at a board meeting Tuesday night. Board President John Tallman dissented, saying he had no problem with Westin’s performance but that he is opposed to multiyear contracts.

Westin did not get a raise Tuesday. His salary jumped to $135,000 last summer from the $125,000 he got when he started in January 1996.

Last summer, the board extended Westin’s original three-year contract for the first time--to Dec. 31, 1999.

As trustees were voting on Westin’s contract, they were still beset with ongoing problems in negotiations with unions. It’s been a month and a day since the teachers’ and service employees unions’ contracts expired.

Officials on both ends of the bargaining teams say this year’s struggle has been especially contentious because the gap between proposals is so wide.

It’s driven some union members to wear anti-Westin pins, with a red slash through the chancellor’s last name.

“You always go in asking for things that are way out of control . . . and then you come down from there,” said Larry Miller, president of the Ventura County Federation of College Teachers. “You’re darn right we’re playing hardball.”

At the heart of the contract debate is the teachers’ demand for a 36% annual increase in salary and benefits for a certain group of faculty and a reduction in workload--requests that the district finds unreasonable.

Westin said the “chasm is enormous” between the two proposals but declined to comment further. The next mediation meeting is Aug. 12.