City College of San Francisco officials appear to have violated their own public disclosure policy by adding executive raises to their budget just one day before trustees adopted the spending plan, the school’s top lawyer advised a trustee in an email obtained by The Chronicle.

College staffers broke no law, attorney Steve Bruckman told trustee Ivy Lee. But he said he would remain mum on whether the action “met the spirit” of state and local laws meant to give the public enough time to review matters up for a vote.

City College policy gives the public at least two days to examine documents up for discussion. But on Aug. 22, when the board approved the executive raises that had been added to the thick budget the day before, “it could be argued that the (college) district did not comply” with its policy, Bruckman told Lee.

Lee had raised questions about the college’s bungled — and later aborted — attempt to double some executives’ pay and raise others’ by up to 90% as the campus struggled with a $32 million budget gap by cutting classes and eliminating jobs. Faculty discovered the move weeks later, and accused the trustees and Chancellor Mark Rocha of giving colossal raises in secret as the rest of the college suffered.

The emails offer a behind-the-scenes look at how City College officials stepped into a public-relations debacle by doubling executive pay after complaining to City Hall about their deep financial woes. The emails reveal that college leaders tried to mask the damage by claiming it never happened — days after their lawyer privately confirmed to them, on Sept. 11, that the new executive pay rates had been legitimately adopted as part of the newly approved budget.

The next day, faculty and students stormed Rocha’s office to protest the large raises and class cuts.

The controversy prompted Rocha to issue a public apology and defense of the raises that he said would need additional approval by the trustees.

“The administration apologized for any misunderstanding or confusion surrounding the proposal to increase administrative salaries, and confirmed that there was in fact a two-step process that would culminate in an open, transparent vote by the board of trustees,” a college spokeswoman said Friday.

The emails show that after the protest, Rocha and Chief Financial Officer Dianna Gonzales scrambled to calm the growing criticism by preparing the public statement, which referred to “proposed” raises in the budget that would need additional approval.

“If this 2-step process is what we intended all along, why didn’t we say that in our (previous) official statement?” Gonzales asked Rocha on Sept. 14, a Saturday. She offered a solution: “Maybe we add, the administrators salaries have NOT been approved nor is anyone getting a $100k increase.”

On Sunday, hours before dawn, Gonzales dashed off another note to Rocha about another problem: “I just realized, the new admin salary schedule is posted on the web site.” She arranged for staff to replace it with the old pay rates, “today if possible.”

On Monday, Rocha sent out the agreed-upon public statement: “The fact of the matter is that the administrator salaries have NOT yet been approved.”

One in 4 administrators quit or lost their jobs since last year and the remaining 57 say they carry a heavier workload than before. Many in the college say they deserve a raise.

The pay increases doubled vice chancellors’ pay to $250,000 at the low end, and raised it 23% at the high end to $260,000. The trustees created a new executive tier, “senior vice chancellor,” with pay from $275,000 to $285,000. They doubled pay for associate vice chancellors to $228,000 at the low end, and raised it 23% at the high end to $238,000. Deans got a 90% raise to $208,000 at the low end, and an 18% boost at the high end to $218,000.

“You made a good decision for the good of the college,” Rocha emailed the Board of Trustees on Sept. 4.

The trustees first considered raising executive pay last year but decided against it “due to the pending re-election of several trustees in November,” Gonzales reminded the trustees and Rocha on Sept. 6.

This year, only one trustee, Lee, is up for re-election. On Aug. 22, as the trustees prepared to approve the 105-page budget — with the executive raises added the day before — Lee left the meeting before the vote. She said she objected to how the raises were approved.

Bruckman, the college’s lawyer, responded with a written analysis. He told Lee the trustees used an “unusual process” to approve the raises. He said staff worked on the budget “up to the day of the board meeting,” so it could be argued that they failed to comply with the policy requiring public disclosure at least 48 hours in advance. Although it wouldn’t invalidate the vote, he said, “it could subject the district and the board to potential criticism and adverse publicity.”

Lee wrote Bruckman again on Sept. 10: “I cannot support any such action without a full and public discussion.”

By then, news of the raises had trickled out to the faculty.

“Shame on you all!” Jim Gormley, who teaches adult education, wrote the trustees on Sept. 10. “It’s like you are living in a different universe!”

Gormley urged them to rescind the raises and said his income had dropped 25% because he’d had a class cut, “as have so many others.”

City College has cut at least 300 classes since last year and has eliminated more than 100 faculty jobs. After struggling for five years to remain accredited, its budget problems worsened in 2017 when the state cut off the tens of millions of dollars in extra funds it provided during that time to stabilize the school.

Meanwhile, the trustees’ less-than-transparent process for approving the executive raises created confusion about how they came about.

English instructor Andrew King wrote them alleging that they broke laws by failing to include the pay increases on the meeting agenda. And Gormley accused them of approving the raises in private, or “closed session.”

Trustee John Rizzo replied: “The board did NOT approve pay raises, secretly or otherwise, in closed session.”

The raises were approved in open session, but not discussed. Nor did the public know the raises were being voted on.

“Clearly, the board could have had the discussion in open session (and the board discussed this), but it was not required,” Bruckman, the lawyer for the college, emailed the trustees the next day.

A month later, on Sept. 26, the trustees replaced the big administrative raises with much smaller ones: 10%, of which the college will pay only 6.74%. The rest will be covered by a state-funded cost-of-living increase. They also voted to hire a consultant to study whether additional raises make sense.

Rocha and the next four highest-paid executives — including Gonzales and Bruckman — will see no increase unless the consultant recommends it and the trustees approve it.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov