Rivals Battle Over State Budget Cuts

In next week’s Los Angeles Community College District election, four incumbents are hoping that voters will trust them to keep the nine local community colleges afloat amid a tidal wave of state budget cuts.

Although they have been campaigning for the Tuesday election primarily as individuals, incumbents Sylvia Scott-Hayes, Mona Field, Georgia Mercer and Warren T. Furutani are promoting each other as a team and have appeared together on slate mailings. “It’s so key that we can all pull together,” Mercer said. “When times are tough, to pull the reins in, it takes a board that’s unified.”

Opposing them are challengers largely from outside the community college arena who want to infuse the board with new blood, which they say is needed to deal with the financial crisis. Four challengers have formed their own slate of candidates and accuse the seven-member board of not being proactive in battling budget cuts.

“Why have they been rolling over and playing dead?” asked Wilma E. Bennett, who is part of that slate and is opposing Field. “Why haven’t they been in Sacramento knocking on doors?”

The four incumbents were elected for the first time in 1999 to the districtwide positions. The board administers a system that serves 130,000 students in nine schools scattered over 800 square miles, from Mission College in the north to Harbor College in the south.

Scott-Hayes, director of the University Testing Center at Cal State L.A., is seeking reelection to Office No. 1. Her challengers are Mark Isler, a public school teacher, and Donna Warren, a grass-roots activist.

In Office No. 3, Field, an instructor at Glendale Community College, faces businesswoman Joyce Burrell Garcia, minister Earl Raymond High and Bennett, a former teacher.

Mercer, a former instructor at UCLA, is seeking reelection to Office No. 5 against David J. Sanchez, a former part-time community college instructor.

Furutani, a consultant to state Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) and a former Los Angeles Unified School District trustee, is seeking Office No. 7. Furutani is opposed by producer Mark Gonzaga and insurance adjuster David R. Hernandez

Linda Serra Hagedorn, chairwoman of the community college leadership program at USC, follows the community college district’s politics but is not involved in them. She said the state’s budget crisis is flavoring the entire debate, but added that the campaigns do not appear more contentious or aggressive than past races.

“The importance of this election is underscored because of the [financial] situation we are in,” she said.

Should no candidate in a race get a majority of votes on Tuesday, a runoff election will be held on May 20. The new district board will be seated in July.

Together, the four incumbents have a financial advantage. They raised more than $180,000 as of Feb. 15, including many donations from construction unions and design firms, as well as community college educators and administrators. The faculty union contributed $2,500 to each. Together, the 12 challengers have amassed nearly $27,000 in contributions, largely from independent donors and their own money.

The incumbents said that their focus is on limiting Gov. Gray Davis’ proposed state budget cuts for community colleges, which could cost the district 4% of its funding and force fees to rise from $11 to $24 per class unit.

“It’ll be at least 1 1/2 years of very tough sledding, but that’s the true test of leadership,” Mercer said. “Everyone can look good in the good times.”

The current board is looking at mandated retirements, furloughs and possibly layoffs of administrators as part of the answer. Their challengers say that is not enough.

Isler, Bennett, Sanchez and Hernandez are running under the banner of the Community College Coalition. Their top priorities are restoring vocational programs and restructuring how the board does business.

They accuse the current board of passing through large quantities of financial items -- more than 300 at a time in one instance -- without lengthy discussion. The district’s budget is nearly $1 billion, and the board meets twice a month to vote on items. It also oversees money from Proposition A, the $1.2-billion bond issue passed in 2001 to upgrade facilities. The board in January approved putting a $980-million bond on a future ballot after determining that the Proposition A money won’t cover all the planned improvements.

“They just sit back, take votes and collect their pay,” Isler said. District board members are paid about $24,000 a year for their part-time positions.

Warren and Gonzaga, Green Party members, also question decisions to cut classes.”What’s happened to mechanics, to welding, to horticulture?” Warren said. “They’ve been pushed by the wayside, and these are things the community needs.”

Garcia said new trustees will bring new approaches to the financial problems. “One of the strengths of coming from a broad background is that we’re not bogged down with history,” Garcia said. “It lends itself to innovation and expedition.”

The incumbents deny the allegation that they are passive and warned that new faces on the board would harm the district at such a critical time.

“Beginners don’t belong on the board right now; we need vast expertise,” said Field, who touted the passing of Proposition A as one of the board’s biggest successes. “There is no time for on-the-job training.”

The challengers have accused the board of catering to the L.A. College Faculty Guild, a union that represents the district’s full-time faculty. Incumbents deny that charge.

“I don’t let anyone control me,” said Field, the faculty union representative at Glendale Community College for 15 years. “My vote is not for sale.”