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September, 2003 Volume 14, Issue 1 - He Who Holds the Heifer |
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By Ken Mason
At the July 7 Board meeting guest speaker Arnold Bray, of the Association of California Community College Administrators (ACCCA), suggested that the overwhelming votes of “No Confidence” on the part of the Academic and Classified Senates were simply a case of “shooting the messenger.” The Superintendent said much the same thing in her immediate response to the vote, indicating that she was being blamed by the “No Confidence” vote for things that were beyond her control.
Later, mysteriously and practically unannounced, State Controller Steve Westly paid a visit to a nearly deserted campus on July 24 as if to highlight Bray’s remarks. The state’s budget crisis is real we were told: the state may have to shut down the schools; the Superintendent made the right choices; the plan by the Senate-Assembly joint conference committee to defer $200 million has stalled; the SMC budget deficit is growing.
Furthermore, we were told, the recall campaign against Governor Davis has discouraged any Republican incentive to cut a deal with Democrats to solve the state’s budget woes. The Superintendent is doing the right thing, Bray proudly concluded. Not surprisingly the Board concurred and thanked him profusely, no doubt feeling assured that their earlier overwhelming vote in closed session to confirm their support for the Superintendent was not in error. In other words, classified and faculty had it all wrong.
Throughout the summer oaths of loyalty were extracted from kowtowing Board members, while emails percolated out of 2714 Pico suggesting that demagogic classified and faculty leaders had harassed their members into voting 83% and 86% no confidence. They only care about salaries not students, it was said. By mid-July the rhetoric had grown even more blunt: now they were obstructing even the most reasonable of District requests!
Those tranquilizing arrows were aimed at the heads of the Board, and like our floundering State Assembly, they found it impossible to put put aside their personal ambitions, loyalties, and prejudices to ask questions. They dare not admit mistakes. Whenever a brave, lone board member courageously voiced a different opinion, the choreographed Board meeting was suddenly transformed into a musical: Guys and Dolls, complete with a “nicely, nicely” Johnson singing “Sit-down! Sit-down! Sit-down! Sit-down! You’ll rock the boat!”
Despite the public propaganda, classified and faculty have always been concerned about the college and student success. SMC’s very reputation is testimony to that fact. Who, after all, actually deals with students? Not the administrators. But that’s not what you heard this summer. “They’re greedy,” it was said. Perhaps the District really sought to recruit missionaries.
The “No Confidence” vote is a commentary on the lack of shared governance on this campus, and has little to do with the state budget woes. The Board doesn’t seem to understand that the vote of no confidence, like Davis’s recall, represents a lack of trust that the vast majority of the SMC employees have in the District’s leadership. It is also an opinion on the ability of the Board to carry out its fiduciary duties as well. Tanto peca el que mata la vaca como el que le tiene la pata. (“He who holds the heifer for the slaughter is as much a killer as the slayer.”)
When you think about it, there are some rather interesting similarities between our hapless Governor, the ideologically-driven Assembly and the doubting citizenry of this fair state on the one hand and our Superintendent, with her overly trusting Board, and the doubting employees on the other. Voters are unhappy with the way the Governor has managed to mismanaged the state’s finances, just as classified and faculty are unhappy with the way the Superintendent has handled the fiscal affairs at SMC. In a real sense both have received votes of no confidence.
Only at SMC the administration is trying to deflect blame away from the Superintendent to Governor Davis and the State Assembly anywhere but here. They’ve tried to spin the summit, proclaiming that it was a success. “Oh be respectable, write about nice people, show how good we are,” wrote Langston Hughes of a similar condescension from those in charge of the purse. “Please stereotype, [but] don’t go too far, don’t shatter our illusion about you, don’t amuse us too seriously. We will pay you.” As if neither side had never talked before, kudos upon kudos was strewn about though in the final analysis the summit, and subsequent meetings, resulted in much ado about nothing.
But one point needs to be clarified once and for all. Classified and faculty have never denied the seriousness of the state budget crisis. Arnold Bray and the Board got it wrong. The classified staff and faculty have always supported a movement to ensure a better, not worse, statewide budget. In fact, last spring an Issues PAC comprising the Community College League (an administrators and trustees group that Arnold Bray works with closely), FACCC and the Los Angeles Guild (AFT) was formed for the sole purpose of fighting reductions in funding and were the key players in successfully lobbying legislators to defer some $200 million in funding cuts this year.
It was they who worked tirelessly with the state Assembly to broker the deal, bolstered by numerous emails, letters, testimonies and visits to legislators from SMC employees. In fact, the fiscal crisis was the topic of the Issues PAC meeting that was held on June 11, at Glendale Community College, attended by administrators, faculty leaders and trustees. Unfortunately, there were no administrators or trustees from SMC present.
So did we shoot the messenger with that vote of no confidence? Well, do the math yourself. On July 7 administrators claimed to FA leaders the college deficit had mushroomed to $17 million. Now that a state budget has been finalized, and the District will receive about as much as it received in the past year, we were told SMC was still running a $6 million deficit.
By August, it suddenly dropped to $3 million. It is clear the state budget crisis merely compounded a local budget problem. Only an independent audit could reveal the truth, and that it seems would only come if the District agreed to one. What we do know is that even during the best of times employees were told the District didn’t have the cash to spend on faculty, programs, services. If there ever was a need for shared governance this is the time.
Two Mexican proverbs come to mind, pick the one you think best suits our situation. For cynics you might say; No hay camino más seguro que acaban de robar no road is safer than the one just robbed. On the other hand, perhaps you’ll give them the benefit of doubt; la ambición nunca se llena (ambition never has its fill).
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