Compton : Budget Impasse Threatening Summer School

The Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees has deadlocked on a tentative budget for 1985-86 that state law requires be approved by July 1.

“The effect of all this is that it makes it questionable whether we can even have summer school,” said Supt. Ted Kimbrough, referring to the fact that a proposed list of managerial personnel for next year had also failed to be adopted by the board. “It’s conceivable that Monday when summer school starts, there will be no principals in the schools.”

The tentative $94-million budget proposed by Kimbrough would have eliminated an outstanding $7-million deficit, leaving a year-end balance of about $273,000.

“What it represents is a restructuring of cuts that wouldn’t really affect people in the district very much,” Kimbrough said. Although some clerical staff would have been reassigned and some support services cut under the proposed budget, he said, only a handful of district workers would have been in danger of losing their jobs.

John Steward, a board member who voted against the proposed budget, saw it differently, however. “I don’t think the cuts were in the right area,” he said. “The cuts should be made beginning at the top starting with the superintendent’s expense account and everyone’s conference budget.”

The board deadlocked 3 to 3 on the proposed budget. Board member Manuel Correa, who suffered a heart attack June 8, was not present for the vote.

Kimbrough said he had notified the county superintendent’s office of the board’s action. “I’m not even sure I have the authority to operate as of July 1 without a tentative budget,” he said.