For an update: I found info below on the Spamassassin site.
I applied the change and restarted spamd to temporarily remove auto-whitelist option until someone can figure out what is causing the errors.
I also noticed that in Spamassassin archives, there were other posters with similar problems, but no offers for a solution.
Note for Users Upgrading to SpamAssassin 3.1.0 ----------------------------------------------- The use_auto_whitelist config option has been moved to a user config option, this allows individual users to turn on or off whitelisting regardless of what is set in the system config. If you would like to disable AWL (auto-whitelist) on a site-wide basis, then you can comment out the plugin in "v310.pre". Mule --Mule was here!--