College Board Delays Vote on Layoffs to Seek Alternatives

Trustees for the Ventura County Community College District postponed a decision until Feb. 28 on whether to lay off faculty and staff members after hearing impassioned pleas from workers and students who would be most affected by the money-saving proposal.

The board directed administrators to look more deeply for areas where money could be saved and challenged employee unions to present their own ideas for bearing some of the financial burden.

“We all have to make sacrifices,” trustee Cheryl Heitmann said. “Let’s have management, the executive team, the faculty union come to the board and present their best plans. There may have to be some layoffs, but let’s try to minimize the impact on one area.”

Administrators had asked trustees to approve a plan that would send pink slips to 39 faculty members working in specially funded programs for disadvantaged students.

The programs include those intended to help Latino, disabled and economically disadvantaged students overcome barriers to higher education.

The three-campus community college district must trim its budget by $3 million this year and another $5 million in 2003-2004 because of the state’s financial turmoil. The proposed layoffs would affect next year’s budget.

Board President Art Hernandez said that with 90% of the district’s budget devoted to personnel, it will be difficult to avoid giving layoff notices to employees by the March 15 deadline.

“I’m not prepared to cut [special programs] right now without looking at other options,” Hernandez said Wednesday. “Somebody is going to get hurt, but I want to make sure we’re real conscious that it’s not affecting students, as much as possible.”

About 200 students, faculty members and staff attended the board meeting Tuesday night at Oxnard College to urge the trustees to reconsider the current proposal.

“It’s not like we think we’re immune from any cuts,” Ventura College employee Nancy Latham said Wednesday.

“Everybody is going to have to tighten their belts and cut corners,” she said. “But cuts that large would just decimate programs.”

Latham coordinates the campus’ educational assistance program, which serves about 1,000 disabled students. She said Moorpark College has 800 to 900 students in its disabled-student program and Oxnard College has about 600.

“There are definitely alternatives short of disrupting programs and disrupting lives,” said Latham, who said she may be among those receiving pink slips.

One alternative might be a plan proposed by the classified employees union, which has offered to have its members take a 3 1/2-day unpaid furlough to save money.

Heitmann said if other employee groups stepped forward with similar offers, the cuts might be distributed more fairly and some programs could be saved.