College district trustee resigns
Marisa O’Neil
A Coast Community College District trustee’s resignation takes effect
today, a move that will substantially increase his pension, just days
before an election that could return him to the same office.
By submitting his resignation Friday, Trustee Armando Ruiz, 61,
can boost his Coast yearly pension from $5,000 to about $55,000, and
will boost his total yearly pension to $120,000, based on his other
job as a counselor at Irvine Valley College. The amount would have
been half of that if he was retiring on separate days.
With the move, Ruiz takes advantage of a little-known loophole in
state law. It allows such officeholders -- employed with another
government agency and who retire from the two positions on the same
day -- to collect state pensions from both jobs, based on their
highest annual salary. Ruiz’s resignation from Coast takes effect
today, along with his retirement from a counseling job at Irvine
Valley College in the South Orange County Community College District.
The additional pension amount is based on his $107,000 maximum salary
at Irvine.
Coast Community College District spokeswoman Erin Cohn said that
the district received a copy Friday of a letter Ruiz addressed to
Orange County Department of Education Supt. Bill Habermehl. It said
that Ruiz’s retirement would be effective Oct. 31, Cohn said.
Ruiz could not be reached for comment Sunday.
He is still running for his trustee seat as an incumbent in
Tuesday’s election.
Critics have charged that Ruiz is double-dipping into the state
pension system and misleading voters by running as an incumbent.
Ruiz has repeatedly refused to comment on the possibility of his
retirement. He told the Huntington Beach Independent, the Pilot’s
sister paper, last week that he feels he is not misleading voters,
because the Orange County Registrar of Voters has allowed him to run
as an incumbent, and absentee voters were already casting ballots.
Bonnie Castrey, a Huntington Beach Union High School District
board member, and Diane Lenning, a high school teacher, are running
for Ruiz’s seat.
Because of his resignation, Ruiz will not sit on the dais for
Wednesday’s meeting, Cohn said. Whoever is elected to the seat won’t
be officially sworn in until December, she said.
Trustee George Brown had not seen the retirement letter as of
Saturday afternoon. If the same opportunity were available to him,
Brown said, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.
“If someone offered me a way to make $50,000 -- if it’s legal --
I’d have to sleep on it real hard,” Brown said. “At first it sounds
like something I wouldn’t do, but I’d really have to think hard about
it.”
* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be
reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.
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