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.