At its most recent meeting, the district's board of trustees made the decision to give layoff notices to more than 92 full-time academic staff members and six classified staff members at West Valley College.

Despite hearing more than 14 hours of public testimony at three separate meetings within a one-week period, trustees were almost unanimous in their approval of the resolutions that would lead to the layoff notices.

Board members said, however, that they expected district administrators to continue working with employees' unions to arrive at a solution that would require the fewest layoffs possible.

The staffing crisis comes as a result of Gov. Gray Davis' proposed budget cuts in education, announced in January. According to district staff, the impact of the governor's proposal districtwide is $15 million; $6.9 million will be taken out of West Valley's budget of approximately $30 million.

College President Marchelle Fox previously said that the school plans a cut in its 2003­04 course offerings by 25 percent; a significant reduction in operating expenses; a reduction of administrative staff by 20 percent; elimination of 25 percent of classified and supervisorial employees; the layoff of 15 percent of full-time faculty members, determined by seniority; and "a significant decrease" in the number of associated faculty normally employed.

Part-time, full-time and associated faculty in departments such as art, biology and sociology and in the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services and Disability and Educational Support Program are now slated for elimination.

Of the seven trustees and two student trustees on the board, only Frank Jewett and student Gagan Singh voted no on the two resolutions.

"This is the most difficult decision of my life," said board President Chris Constantin at the March 13 meeting. "I can't eat; I can't sleep." But Constantin said that he believed an affirmative vote was in the best interests of the district.

Jane Patton, president of the Mission College Academic Senate, told the board, "You might have felt a fraction of the anger and the pain that the district employees have felt for the past few weeks."

The decision to lay off new faculty represented "a serious demise in the health of Mission College," Patton said. "They will continue long after most of us have retired."

"Pink-slipping our recent hires will mean a costly mistake," said Linda King, president of the West Valley College Academic Senate and a social science instructor.

King recalled a previous meeting, where a speaker had urged the board to take a "leap of faith" and use courage and creativity to come up with alternative cost-cutting measures.

"Chancellor [Stan] Arterberry has been behaving as if a leap of faith just means one thing: taking salary and benefit cuts," King said.

Carolyn Fisher, president of the Association of College Educators, said that day's negotiations had not gone well. "We were willing to tie our salary cuts to management cuts, and Stan refused," Fisher said. "This is not good-faith bargaining and has not been."

Fisher urged the board to take a vote of no-confidence in Arterberry—a suggestion that was followed by applause and cheers from audience members, the majority of which were faculty and staff.

But according to the district's legal counsel, both sides had made offers that would have resulted in no layoffs of full-time staff, which were rejected by the other negotiating party.

An unprecedented number of people spoke at the March 6, March 8 and March 13 meetings. Many were students who had benefited from various district programs that were scheduled to be cut; they testified on the significance of the colleges' disabled services and academic courses, as well as Mission's computer information technology department.

"It's not the faculty that will suffer the most," said Gerald Pauler, a computer information technology instructor. "It is, in fact, the students that will suffer the most and, because of that, the community."

One student was able to transfer to a four-year college after attending Mission. "No amount of money would have catapulted me to Santa Clara University," she said. "I desperately needed student services to excel both academically and personally."

Another student, who is disabled, testified on the benefits of Mission's physical therapy courses. "It's the best physical therapy that I've received," she said. "This has been the first place that I've received the things that I'm supposed to get."

District employees also spoke, accusing the administration of mismanagement over the years and mishandling the negotiation process, recommending that the trustees question financial information and asking the administration to come up with more creative ways to save money.

"Something is terribly wrong with leadership in this place," said Pat Andrews, vice president of the Association of College Educators Union. When the union offered to cut staff's own salaries and benefits, Andrews said, "the district said no to all of these efforts. Instead, they announced that they would issue March 15 [potential layoff] notices to all faculty."

"Arterberry has stated that he will not balance the budget on the backs on the classified staff. The board cannot balance the budget on the backs of students," said Andrews, chairwoman of West Valley's social science division.

"The emphasis should not be on anything but education. The emphasis should be on education, and you don't cut there," one teacher said.

Many of the trustees said, however, that their primary responsibility was ensuring that the district operated on a balanced budget to ensure its survival.

"I do not know how the board can put itself in a position where we don't give out notices," Trustee Jeff Schwartz said. Schwartz said the district could be forced to shut down midyear if it did not lay off employees.

Trustee Bob Owens also voted yes on the resolution. "Our society appears to be in a position where we can make cuts in education, we can make cuts in health care, but we can't make cuts in prisons. That's a crummy position," Owens said, but it puts the board in a tough dilemma.

Jewett did not support the resolutions because he had hoped to single out and maintain specific programs that were listed—a hope that the rest of the board did not share. Singh, who also voted no, said he felt balancing the budget was important but public reaction was even more persuasive.

Final layoff notices must be sent by May 15 and will be on May 7.

Andrews said she was disappointed and angry with the vote. "I truly believed that the district was being honest when it said it wanted to prevent the most amount of layoffs possible," she said. "I feel betrayed because I believed that."

The morale at West Valley, Andrews said, has been "terrible—people are crying and everything."

"The most difficult thing, I think, is to keep the spirits up of the people who have received notices," said Los Gatos resident Don Cordero, a counselor at Mission.

Cordero said he hopes negotiations will be successful and the board will rescind the resolutions. "But I'm apprehensive that there might be acrimony that builds on both sides," Cordero said. "We need to recognize the merits of both sides. The goal should be to continue to make this a viable institution without shooting themselves in the foot."