Up to $5.5 million will have to be paid back to the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) by the EC Compton Center (ECCC) due to contractual errors with instructors in the cosmetology program.

“Obviously any school losing $5 million hurts budget-wise, but it doesn’t all have to be paid back right away,” Barbara Perez, the Compton Center’s vice president, said. “We don’t have to pay it back in a lump sum, so we’ll set up a payment schedule with the Chancellor’s office, but the final amount has not been determined.”

The ECCC has been preparing for the possibility of having to pay back the money.

“We knew we were going to have to pay the Chancellor’s Office back some money, so we actually had put aside $1.2 million out of our budget this year,” Perez said.

While the final liability is still undetermined, it is expected to have little effect on the everyday function of the Compton Center, and none at all for the Torrance campus.

“[The payment] is not going to affect class offerings at all,” Perez said.

The exact repayment is still being negotiated with the CCCCO.

“We’re still working with the Chancellor’s Office to determine the liabilities for the district,” Keith Curry, CEO of the Compton Center, said. “That’s the reason I can’t give a dollar amount, because they don’t know.”

Curry said that any money being returned will be coming strictly from the Compton Center and will not have an effect on the Torrance campus’ money.

The reasons for the payback were contract issues with ECCC’s third-party beauty school.

“The Compton Community College District has two Instructional Service Agreements currently in place providing education top students,” according to a 2010-11 audit, section 2011-25. “One of the agreements, Universal Beauty School, was found by the district to not have all the required elements within the contract as required by the State Chancellor’s office, as well as not having the required contracts with the instructors of the courses offered.”

Because of these contract issues, some funding received for full-time estimated students will have to be returned.

EC Compton received funding for 197.30 full time estimated students under the Instructional Services Agreement in 2009-2010 and 265.51 in 2008-2009, according to the 2010-11 audit report.

As of now, the Compton Center no longer offers cosmetology classes.

“We had a contract with Universal College of beauty, which was a part of the audit finding, and we did not continue that contract for this current year,” Curry said.