District Asks Employees to Take Week Off

The Los Angeles Community College District has asked employees to take a one-week unpaid furlough to help ease its budget crisis, but the acting chancellor said he did not expect the unions to agree to the request.

“I would be plenty surprised if anyone agreed to have a week furlough,” said Chancellor James Heinselman, who has been running the besieged nine-college district since December when its former chancellor resigned suddenly to take another job.

Indeed, unions that have considered the furlough have rejected it, leading Heinselman to announce a fallback, voluntary furlough plan at Wednesday night’s Board of Trustees meeting.

Heinselman also told the board that the district has identified other ways to narrow the deficit from $13.1 million to about $3 million.

He said the savings would come from a variety of strategies, large and small, including a hiring freeze on temporary employees and the firing of student workers.

Seventeen staff members in the district headquarters, mostly office workers and analysts from the Educational Services Division, would have their positions cut under his plan.

But in a surprise move late in the meeting, the trustees voted against cutting the positions, leading three trustees to walk out of the meeting in protest.

The trustees who left said later that they felt that they had been betrayed by their colleagues who sabotaged the agreed-upon savings plan.

Still, plans are in place to eliminate three administrators from district headquarters, which means that they will revert to faculty status and be absorbed by one of the campuses.

Several of the office workers present for the meeting urged the board to save their jobs.

“This is supposed to be a student-centered district,” James McCullough said. “To me it’s like putting students last.”

Two board office secretaries were among those whose jobs seemed sure to be cut at the start of the meeting. “This is our thanks for being dedicated, hard-working, loyal employees,” one of them, Laurie Green, told the board.

In Sacramento, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted to conduct a full-scale audit of the district at the request of state Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles).

But a spokesman for Polanco said the audit would not begin until the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.

Union leaders say the projected $13.1-million deficit is inflated as a strategy to get them to give back hard-won pay raises.

Al Washington, who represents service workers--such as gardeners, janitors and cafeteria workers--said his members already work extra because of unfilled positions.

“Our members are already cut to the bone,” Washington said. “To ask them to take five days [off] is too much.”