COLLEGE DISTRICT MOVES TO SELL ITS HIGH-RISE BUILDING.

Byline: Sharline Chiang Daily News Staff Writer

After nearly a decade of paying costs for an empty building, the Los Angeles Community College District board of trustees voted Wednesday to accept a $5.9 million offer for its ``white elephant'' downtown high-rise.

Board members discussed the potential sale of the building at 4050 Wilshire Blvd. during a closed-session meeting and voted to enter escrow. The sale, which is not final until that escrow process is complete, would end the nearly 10 years of costs associated with a building that has not been used since the district purchased it for $12.5 million.

The board also approved a tentative $392 million 1998-99 budget Wednesday, the first designed to fund colleges as autonomous campuses.

The budget draft was a glimpse at how Pierce, Mission and Valley colleges, as well as the district's six other campuses, will be funded in the upcoming school year under the board's new decentralization plan.

Under the tentative budget, each college would receive $2 million to $10 million more than they received this year. Their expenses will increase to cover previously centralized costs such as employee benefits, educational services, information technology and student services.

Mission College in Sylmar would receive $13.3 million, up nearly $2 million. Valley College in Van Nuys would receive $32 million, up about $8 million. Pierce College in Woodland Hills would receive $31.5 million, up about $6.5 million.

A final budget is expected to be adopted in early September.

A report released earlier this year showed the district faced a projected $13 million deficit in its unrestricted general fund due to overspending.

The fund covers the majority of the district's operating expenses, including salaries, supplies and building maintenance.

District officials announced recently they expect the projected deficit will be eliminated by the end of this month through cuts and funding shifts.

The budget includes a cost of living adjustment of 2.18 percent and assumes a 3 percent increase in enrollment.

The tentative budget shows an unrestricted general fund of $287 million, $10 million more than the fund's budget this year. The budget allocates $126 million for professor and other instructor salaries, up from $110.5 million.

Clerical staff and other classified workers were allotted $63.8 million, down from $64.2 million.

On Wednesday, decentralization participants applauded their progress so far.

``I've been with this district for 37 years and I do not recall such a time of coming together of individual groups,'' said Evelyn Wong, president of West Los Angeles College, who presented the board a list of services to decentralize.