City’s Claim to Desegregation Funds Denied : Education: Auditors reject $8.6 million in request for $20.5 million. They say Long Beach actually used the funds to reduce classroom overcrowding.

State auditors have rejected about $8.6 million in reimbursement claims submitted by the Long Beach Unified School District for a voluntary school desegregation program.

Long Beach schools requested about $20.5 million for voluntary desegregation efforts from July 1, 1984, to June 30, 1987. But the auditors pared down the claim to $11.9 million.

John V. Kitchens, an audit supervisor in the state controller’s office, said last week that his staff determined that the funds were used to reduce classroom overcrowding, not segregation.

One point of contention centers on allowing children in the sixth grade to attend classes at a junior high school. In a report completed last December, state auditors concluded that: “It appears the original and primary purpose of those programs was to alleviate overcrowding in elementary schools.”

However, in a written response attached to the audit, school district officials contended that children were not sent to a junior high unless their “presence at such school would improve the racial and/or ethnic mix.”

They also said that if the district merely wanted to reduce overcrowding it could have found other ways--such as operating double school sessions or year-round schools--”at virtually no additional cost.”

District officials describe the findings as unfair and are appealing the decision to State Controller Gray Davis. “If the result is desegregation, it’s pretty clear that’s what the money was used for,” said Richard Van Der Laan, a district spokesman.

With 69,000 pupils, Van Der Laan said Long Beach is the state’s third largest school district. He estimated that between 1977 and 1989 the district spent $84 million on voluntary integration efforts but so far has received only $24.8 million in reimbursement from the state.

The district voluntarily established a school desegregation program in 1972 but has not had an easy time attempting to recover its costs. Although the state reimburses school districts under court order to integrate, it has been reluctant to reimburse districts that voluntarily adopted and implemented desegregation plans.

In January, 1988, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered the state to pay up to $35 million to the Long Beach district for money spent on voluntary desegregation efforts from 1977 to 1984.

Anthony Murray, a lawyer who represents the school district in the case, said the state has appealed the ruling to the state Court of Appeal, which has yet to set a date for oral arguments.

Murray said he was not surprised by the rejection of claims for the 1984-1987 period. He maintained that the claims “are disallowed every year” but eventually will be tacked on to the pending court case.

The school system’s minority enrollment has been increasing for years. In the last decade, Latino enrollment has increased to 29.4% from 16.2%, black enrollment to 19% from 18.1%, and Asian enrollment to 14.8% from 5.4%. White enrollment has dropped to 30.8% from 57.6% a decade ago.