Felando Calls for State Audit of Peninsula Schools

South Bay Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando has asked the state auditor general to conduct a full-scale investigation of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District’s finances and management--a move that apparently puts the San Pedro Republican on the side of an east Peninsula group that wants to secede from the district and set up a new school system.

However, Felando--considered a front-runner for the congressional seat that Rep. Dan Lungren will vacate if he wins confirmation as state treasurer--said Wednesday that he only wants to get out “the hard, cold facts . . . about what is going on up there.”

The state audit, which is awaiting final authorization by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee in Sacramento, would cover virtually all aspects of the Peninsula district’s operations over the last five years, according to a preliminary analysis by the auditor general’s office.

Focus on Declining Enrollment

It would focus on the 9,800-student district’s handling of its problem with declining enrollment--a loss of more than 45% since 1974--and the measures taken to deal with the problem. These steps include the recent decision to close Miraleste High School and efforts to sell the closed Dapplegray Intermediate campus. Both schools are on the east side of the Peninsula, and the decisions to shut them prompted the secession effort.

District officials said Wednesday that they have received no formal notification of a pending audit and no word from Felando that he wants an investigation.

“We’re sorry that Mr. Felando has chosen not to come to the district to request information and discuss his concerns,” school board President Marlys Kinnel said. She charged that the audit--which will cost nearly $20,000 and require about 85 days of work by two auditors, according to the auditor general--would be a waste of public funds.

“All decisions and actions of the board have been within its legal authority as an elected body,” she said. “Anyone who wishes to examine the record will find it open and readily available.”

Tom Jankovich Jr., a leader of the East Peninsula Education Council, said he has discussed an audit with Felando but did not know that one was coming.

“An audit could be good or bad for EPEC,” said Jankovich. “It could turn up something, like monies set aside, or it may show that the board is running a tight ship. Either way, it will be good for the public to find out.”

Jankovich said his group plans to start circulating a secession petition in January. If it gets the signatures of 25% of the registered voters in the proposed new district east of Crenshaw Boulevard, the petition will qualify for review by county and state education panels. Earlier this month, the group filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the district’s plans to close Miraleste next spring and to sell the Dapplegray property to a developer.

Felando, in a telephone interview Wednesday, said he has been “getting a lot of conflicting stories” on the secession issue, and “now I want to know what is going on.”

If the audit shows that district officials have been “fiscally irresponsible,” he said, “then I want to sit down with them and point out the areas that need addressing. . . . What they let the public know isn’t what is really going on.”

‘Money in the Basket’

Felando observed that “the people who don’t want Miraleste closed are very serious, and they have some real power behind them--money in the basket.” He referred to the $140,000 that the Miraleste group claims to have raised to fight its legal battles with the district.

But, Felando said, “I’m not picking on the district” and “I’m not doing this for Mr. Jankovich. After all, I’m the assemblyman representing this district, and I’m always willing to sit down with a group of constituents and discuss a problem.”

Felando said he does not believe that his position on an audit will offend Peninsula voters or hurt his bid for Lungren’s House seat. That effort, he said, is “going very well. I’m making a lot of calls” to potential supporters. Felando’s 51st Assembly District covers the Peninsula, Torrance, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and part of San Pedro.

The auditor general, currently Thomas W. Hayes, is appointed by the Legislature, and his office generally undertakes special investigations at the request of individual lawmakers or of legislative bodies. It has been called a state version of the U.S. General Accounting Office.