College Board Considering Staff Furloughs

Seeking to close a projected $13.1-million budget gap before June 30, the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees considered several options Saturday, including two-week unpaid furloughs for district employees, which would make up about $8 million of the shortfall.

The trustees, meeting in a special session at Southwest College, took no action but will take up the issue again Wednesday. They are considering whether to reopen negotiations with the district’s employee unions, who had won long-fought raises over the past year.

The district faces its shortfall in part because of the pay hikes promised to teachers, clerical workers, administrators and other employees. New contracts give employee raises starting at 12% over three years for administrators and higher for faculty.

Besides furloughs, trustees are considering whether to delay until next year retroactive raises owed employees under the new contracts, which apply to the 1996-97 school year.

They are also deciding whether to defer some of the promised raises until next year.

The district’s worsening financial troubles became public this month when its chief financial officer announced a $13.1-million shortfall for the 1997-98 school year.

Most of the district’s nine campuses have cut class offerings for the past two semesters to save money.

Part of the financial troubles arose this year when the state chancellor’s office demanded that the Los Angeles district pay a $2.8-million fine for allowing its ratio of full-time faculty to students to fall below state guidelines, although it is still higher than most districts.

The district is also under pressure from the state chancellor’s office to improve its poor fiscal management. The chancellor’s office recently downgraded the district’s fiscal rating among the state’s troubled community college districts.

Unless the district moves quickly, the state could appoint a monitor to oversee its financial operations. About 100,000 students attend the Los Angeles Community College District, the nation’s largest.

After the five-hour closed session, board President Althea Baker said she could not reveal the trustees’ discussion because it involved collective bargaining agreements.

Given that salaries and benefits account for more than 80% of the district’s budget, it would be difficult to find $13.1 million in savings without asking for employee concessions, ranging from not getting paid for two upcoming holidays to not getting paid for the two-week spring break, college officials say.

The unions are taking an aggressive role, saying that the projected fiscal chasm has been exaggerated for public and trustee consumption.

Faculty union President Carl Friedlander blames the district’s centralized administration for part of the fiscal crisis, saying officials sat passively for months instead of taking steps to curb the projected deficit.

Friedlander said the faculty raises, which he places at 16% over three years, followed several years of stagnant salaries that put the district’s teachers at the bottom of the pay scale around the state.

Even with the raises, the faculty is in the bottom half of pay among community college teachers in California, he said.