The hits keep coming at Edison State College.

The vice chairman of Edison’s Board of Trustees said Wednesday that he has resigned his appointment to the board, where he served since 2006. With that, David Klein’s name is added to a growing list of defections and ousters in the college’s upper echelon, though he is the highest-level official at Edison to throw in the towel thus far.

Klein has been the only board member to publicly discuss a weeks-long reckoning between the college’s faculty and its administration, going so far as to express frustration over apparent mismanagement there. Klein, reached by phone at his Port Charlotte ophthamology practice on Wednesday, said, in short, he is fed up.

“I’m done,” he said. “I’ve been with Edison 25 years. My family donated a quarter million dollars to the school 20 years ago. … My family and the people who run my practice encouraged me to give this up.”

Fellow board member Mahlan Houghton Jr. said Wednesday he had been “shocked” by some of Klein’s statements through the media, particularly Klein’s expressions of outrage over President Kenneth Walker’s pay level.

“Because the statements that are being made about, ‘We didn’t know about these raises, someone should investigate it’ — that’s just not true,” Houghton said. “We’ve always been made aware of changes to peoples’ contracts.”

Houghton said he had no opinion about Klein’s resignation because he didn’t personally know why Klein resigned.

On Tuesday, Walker released a statement that he would “be consulting with the District Board of Trustees” to make a decision about what to do about the employment of James Browder, Walker’s number two, and the focus of many faculty complaints. On Monday, Walker bowed to faculty pressure and agreed to reassign Browder, as well as urge Browder to look for another job.

“When (Walker) hired (Browder), he didn’t need us,” Klein said Wednesday. “All of these things have been going on under cover, behind my back. He’s going to consult with the trustees now? Very nice.”

Klein said the board was deliberately and systematically kept in the dark when it came to personnel changes, including the abrupt resignation of Noreen Thomas, Browder’s predecessor.

“We were told I didn’t have to worry about it,” Klein said. “It’s confidential.”

Reached by phone Wednesday and informed of Klein’s resignation, Faculty Senate Vice President Russell Swanson had one immediate reaction: “Oh, no.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, because Dr. Klein had been the one board member who was speaking out with concern about the situation,” Swanson said. “I don’t know much about the board’s workings, I have to admit, but it certainly looks like he was the one who was willing to admit that there was a lack of oversight and that it needs to be increased. To see the one person who was willing to say that, go, is frustrating.”

Robert Beeson, a vice president at the college and the district-wide dean, said he, likewise, had anticipated Klein would “stick around to help improve the situation around here.”

“Just when you think it’s gotten about as bad as it could get,” he said. “I know a lot of the faculty had hoped for Mr. Klein’s participation in the process.”

Asked what would have to happen to improve the situation at Edison, Klein said he had one hope: “I’m hoping that the state of Florida will man up, our governor, and come down here and install new leadership.”

Klein called for an audit of all of the college’s finances, “top to bottom, left to right,” specifically looking at salary levels, which he said he was astounded by. Walker’s base salary, as reported by the Daily News last week, is $322,400, with additional benefits totalling more than $93,000; additional salary and benefits from Edison’s finance corporation and foundation are estimated to bring his total compensation package to more than $800,000. It was the additional compensation and benefits Klein said he was not aware of, though he already felt Walker’s base salary was unnecessarily high.

And as for the reporters covering the swiftly changing situation at Edison, Klein also had a message: “Keep the pressure on until you get some answers.”