District Faces $100,000 Fine for Violations

Compton Community College District, already under state control amid ongoing corruption investigations, faces a $100,000 fine for failing to file employee conflict-of-interest statements with the state, a pattern that had stretched over 20 years.

The fine, which was announced Monday by the Fair Political Practices Commission, reflected 42 violations since 1998, because the commission is bound by a five-year statute of limitations. But investigators said they had charted noncompliance over two decades.

The commission singled out Compton College President Ulis C. Williams, saying that he “completely failed to comply with [his] duties” to ensure that the college’s employees had filed the proper conflict-of-interest disclosures, which it called “very serious.”

Under state law, some state and local government employees must file annual “statements of economic interest” that detail outside money earned or gifts received. Employees starting or leaving those jobs also are required to file. The statements allow state auditors and the public to monitor potential conflicts of interest among government workers.

The commission’s chief of enforcement, Steven Russo, said that although Williams is responsible for seeing that his employees file the disclosures, the commission does not commonly cite a manager in such cases.

“It is unusual for us to bring an action against a filing officer for violations of this kind, but it’s been done,” Russo said. “[Williams] had a long history of failing to perform the duties of a filing officer.”

Williams’ office referred questions to his attorney, who could not be reached.

According to the commission’s investigation, Compton College enacted a conflict-of-interest code in 1977, which applied to employees in upper management as well as to consultants. Investigators found that for two decades, none of the designated employees at Compton College had filed a conflict-of-interest statement and that since 1998, the few who had filed had done so late.

Because of Compton College’s chronic failure to file proper paperwork, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors in 1992 devised a more specific conflict-of-interest code for the school, in which 11 positions were identified as mandatory filers, the commission said.

The employees named in the commission documents include the dean of student affairs, the director of business affairs, the director of athletics, the director of research and planning, the director of maintenance and operations and the head librarian. Also named were Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton) and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who both have worked as consultants to the college.

The fine requires approval by the full commission, which is expected to act at its Oct. 7 meeting.

The commission also has the option of acting against the individuals who did not file.

Russo said the violations were discovered during an unrelated investigation, but he would not elaborate. The district has been the focus of several corruption investigations since last year.

In May, the state took control of the 7,000-student district. State officials said the takeover was necessary to bring the college back into solvency after it had ended the 2002-03 fiscal year with a $300,000 deficit instead of an expected $2.2-million surplus.

But a preliminary audit released in July found that the college actually had ended the year with a $600,000 surplus, which state officials explained as “lost” funds that had been discovered during the audit.

In the takeover, the five-member locally elected Board of Trustees was stripped of its power and a special trustee named by Chancellor Mark Drummond was given veto authority over any of its decisions. Williams retained his post as president and superintendent of the one-college district.

That trustee, Art Tyler, has attempted to restructure the college’s administration and budget while overseeing an audit of the 2002-03 year. That audit is expected to be released soon.