WHAT'S IN THE NUMBERS
L.A.'s public school administrators battle for control of an impending audit, raising questions abou
Whether or not City Controller Laura Chick eventually wins the chance to audit the Los Angeles Unified School District - a proposal that has now become a political slugfest pitting her and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa against school Superintendent Roy Romer - an independent audit of the school system is going to happen. And, according to the union representing the district's teachers, there is plenty of waste and mismanagement of funds that need to see the light of day.
"We have said, for years, that the money is being mismanaged and not enough of it is going to the school site and the classroom," says A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the second largest teacher's union in the U.S., who pushed for an audit as part of his campaign for the union presidency.
"And there was no doubt in my mind that once we had this audit, we're going to find all kinds of money that's used inappropriately," he adds.
UTLA and the LAUSD recently negotiated a legal Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, requiring an audit of the school system by an independent firm. The LAUSD has its own vast internal auditing department, which has an annual budget of $12 million, but the MOU designates that the system must be audited by an outside firm agreed-upon by designees of both the union and the school district.
"When I learned that the recent labor agreement between the teachers union and the board included a provision to have an independent, outside audit of areas of concern within the school district, I jumped at that moment," says Chick.
Chick's office is only one of many outside agencies that could perform the audit, but controversy erupted when Superintendent Romer vehemently opposed the idea. In his remarks at a December 20 City Council meeting and a subsequent letter explaining his objections, he remarked that the district was "not failing" and that an audit was unnecessary, too expensive, and could hurt the district's credit rating, which would make borrowing more expensive. Romer's office declined to comment for this article.
Not mentioned, however, is the fact that an audit has already been negotiated. The obvious sticking point is the involvement of Chick, who is a close political ally of Villaraigosa. The mayor has made plain his desire to break up the massive school district, which involves 27 different cities, and to exert what he's calling "mayoral responsibility" over those schools that lay within the City of Los Angeles.
Chick, however, believes that her office is the best-suited for the audit. "I don't believe there is anyone who can do it better than the controller's office," she says, noting, "I am an independent, elected official, answerable only to the public. I am not beholden to the special interests or stakeholders in the school district, and I have a track record of delivering very piercing, truth-telling, and well-publicized audits."
"This should be a positive for the district, because they have a credibility gap. They don't have transparency or accountability, either," she adds. "The district performs many functions besides teaching children. Why is there never enough money for children in the classroom?"
Audits by the energetic controller, however, have proven easy to politicize in the past. During the last mayoral race, Chick's audits of LAX and the Port of Los Angeles, to name a few, unearthed alleged improprieties that caused the departure of several deputy mayors and political appointees of then-mayor James Hahn. Chick argues, however, that she's not in favor of any takeover of the school district at this time.
"This is not meant to place blame. I believe the board and the superintendent inherited many of the long-term conflicts on their plates today," she says. "I think that the super and the board are making a very big mistake in closing ranks and feeling they need to be defensive and protective."
"The mayor thinks that it would provide a blueprint for change, and that there's nothing the school district should fear, that they should welcome Controller Chick," says Janelle Erickson, spokesperson for the mayor. "This is a fantastic opportunity for the school district and the city to work together to improve our schools."
LAUSD School Board President Marlene Canter met with Chick on January 4 and announced the two offices were looking for ways to work together, according to spokesperson Amy Dresser Held.
Chick says she has not identified parts of the school budget that would be targeted in any audit, and that there is a legal process by which that must be determined. Duffy, however, points out what he thinks are a few problem areas.
"One of the things certainly that I want to know about is the mini-districts, which I think are pretty much a waste," he says. "I think they need to be completely restructured. We now have eight different superintendents who re-interpret rules and contract language, sometimes very differently, so we can have different decisions in different parts of the city for the same problem. One of the things we need to do is standardize."
UTLA, however, is opposed to the mayor's plan to take control of the school system, and has also opposed the intercession of Chick's office.
"If she's the one who's chosen, based upon the agreement, then I'll be fine with that," says Duffy. "There is a problem, though, in that she is a close political ally of the mayor's. And I'm not so sure there aren't political overtones to this overture on her part. It comes too close on the heels of the mayor going after mayoral control of the school system."
According to the MOU, the LAUSD has designated that Mike Casserly, executive director of Council of the Great City Schools and the main force behind a previous audit called the Great Cities Report, will present a list of prospective auditors. UTLA has picked Ed McElroy, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and National Education Association President Reg Weaver, to also present a list. The auditor will be then be selected in meetings between the union and the district.
In the meantime, the mayor's office says that Villaraigosa will present a proposal to extend "mayoral responsibility" over the schools in the next three to four months. Such a proposal would mean amending the city charter, which would require placing a measure on the ballot. It could also mean moving a bill through the state legislature, since the state controls much of the funding for K-12 education.
Duffy calls the mayor's plan a "mayoral takeover."
"I fail to see where replacing one bureaucracy with another helps the classroom teacher," Duffy adds. He is quick to designate, however, it's not Villaraigosa - a former union organizer - he's worried about. It's whoever comes after. He points out that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who negotiated a similar move for mayoral control in that city, has made a practice of handing out school-system jobs as political largess.
"If we're talking, as the mayor does, about accountability, it's easier to hold the seven board members accountable," says Duffy. "They can be elected or unelected a lot easier than electing or unelecting a mayor."
Published: 01/04/2006
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