College Overseer Gets Bodyguard

After a threat to his safety, the special trustee overseeing the state’s controversial takeover of the Compton Community College District will receive bodyguard protection that is expected to cost at least $70,000.

The state-appointed trustee, Art Tyler, declined to elaborate on the threat other than that it was relayed by the California Highway Patrol’s protective services unit. The CHP will provide the bodyguard-driver, but the college will pay for it at least through November despite protests from the school’s locally elected trustees.

The guard issue is another example of how tensions have risen since the state took over the 7,000-student campus in May and how the angry local college board is fighting back orally and in a Superior Court lawsuit.

The board of trustees has been reduced to an advisory board and is unable to block the CHP contract or any other of Tyler’s decisions. That has not stopped the trustees from chiding him and the state intervention in general.

“It doesn’t look good: You come in here and say we’re broke and come up with that $70,000 bill,” trustee Carl Robinson said of the bodyguard at a meeting Tuesday night in the college’s crowded board room.

“I could protect you for that,” said trustee Lorraine Cervantes, to a round of laughter.

“It sends a bad message: We’re a bunch of wild people, and you need a bodyguard,” said board President Kent Swift. “It’s a slap in the face to the community.”

Tyler listened quietly to the comments. In an interview Wednesday, he said he is not taking any of the criticism personally and that he is only following the advice of the CHP and state community college system Chancellor Mark Drummond.

“There’s no acrimony whatsoever,” said Tyler, a former administrator at Los Angeles City College. “My responsibility is to fix the things missing or lacking to ensure that this place is back on a sound financial basis.... We are here for the students and the community, not for the politics.”

He said he expects to be at Compton at least a year.

Tyler and other state officials said they are trying to restore the financial health of the one-campus district after alleged financial mismanagement and declining enrollment.

The college, which serves the predominantly black and Latino communities of Compton and neighboring cities, is under investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, the U.S. attorney’s office and a federal grand jury for alleged corruption, according to officials and court papers submitted by Drummond’s office in response to the trustees’ lawsuit.

The college’s five trustees, two of whom were elected in November, continue to use the public meetings to openly -- at some points brazenly -- speak out against Tyler’s actions. Meanwhile, a trial date has not been set for their lawsuit contesting the legality of the state takeover.

Tyler this week announced the preliminary findings of an audit for the 2002-03 school year that suggests the college was in better fiscal shape than previously thought. While an earlier projection showed a $300,000 shortfall, the audit now is showing the district about $600,000 in the black.

State officials, however, say that the extra funds are in previously unaudited accounts or represent uncollected bills, signs of a poorly managed $34-million budget. Even if that surplus stands, it will not be enough to stabilize the school’s finances, they add. The full audit is expected to take several more weeks to finish.

“It’s a still a very teeter-totter situation, fiscally, but good things are happening,” said Frederick E. Harris, Drummond’s assistant vice chancellor for finance, who traveled from Sacramento to attend the meeting.

But board members view the preliminary audit report as more evidence that the takeover is at best questionable, if not illegal and disenfranchising to local voters.

“The state totally did this board wrong. They should have sent in auditors first and then if they found money was misused, then they should come in and do an intervention,” Robinson said Wednesday.

“They wouldn’t dare go into Santa Monica and do that,” he said, referring to the Santa Monica Community College District, which has also been on the state’s fiscal watch list.

State officials say the financial situation at Compton is just one of the reasons for the takeover. Enrollment at Compton College has dropped from 7,800 in fall 2002 to about 7,000 in fall 2003, reducing state funding.

The state wants to install a comprehensive educational plan to counter losses in course offerings in recent years. But, Tyler said, that can’t happen until a new budget is finalized, and that can’t happen until spending for this and last year is audited.

“We can do a lot of things in a short period of time,” Tyler said. “Can we change the culture? Changing the culture takes time.”

Tyler said he has taken pains to make the governing process as open as possible. Although he could run the meetings himself, he has allowed the elected board to manage the proceedings.

The state, meanwhile, is leading a counteroffensive.

Drummond has signed several executive orders strengthening his case for the takeover. Last month the state community colleges board of governors, which oversees 109 colleges in 72 districts, adopted an emergency resolution at Drummond’s request that reiterates his authority to intervene at a local district if necessary.

The fight has even reached the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last week signed a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton) to further strengthen Drummond’s powers to step into Compton College. But in an accompanying letter, Schwarzenegger warned that the bill did not adequately define the recovery process for the college.

Local trustees contend that Dymally’s bill and the other recent state actions are retroactively trying to provide a cover for an illegal takeover.

As for the bodyguard contract, CHP spokesman Tom Marshall confirmed Wednesday that Tyler is already being protected.

He said he did not know the specifics of Tyler’s situation but that such arrangements are usually made “on the basis of a security or threat issue.”

Tyler said Wednesday that the cost of the bodyguard will prove worthwhile if it helps him lead the college through a complicated recovery process.

“Major surgery is a little more expensive than an aspirin,” Tyler said of upcoming changes at the college such as efforts to recruit more students. “In this case, we’re doing a little extra healthcare. But at the end of the process the institution will be a lot healthier.”