Natural History Museum Grant Pact Approved : Museums: The institution has returned $64,000 to the National Science Foundation in a dispute over accounting procedures.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History has agreed to return nearly $64,000 to the National Science Foundation, ending a dispute over museum accounting procedures.

The foundation, which last November had declared the natural history museum ineligible for new government grants, contended the funds were improperly spent. The grant ineligibility, which lasted until May 18, was the first time the National Science Foundation had ever imposed the severe suspension penalty on a museum.

Meanwhile, the county Board of Supervisors has called off discussions concerning the merger of the museum and the county Arboreta and Botanic Gardens--apparently acting to quell protests among support groups for the separate institutions.

The county board action came Tuesday when a motion to terminate the merger study by Supervisor Mike Antonovich was approved without debate. It occurred after top museum officials--conceding that protest had been overwhelming among community and support groups--asked that the proposal be withdrawn.

“In light of the concern . . . the (museum) board of trustees is opposed to such a merger,” said a letter from the museum to Supervisor Pete Schabarum, the board chairman. “We believe it would not be in the best interests of either institution and that, if merged, both could suffer in the loss of goodwill and support from the community.”

The termination of merger discussions represented the second setback in less than three years for the natural history museum in attempts to take over other facilities. In 1987, it tried to absorb the private Southwest Museum in Mount Washington, but the proposal was abandoned in the wake of outraged protests by community groups led by City Councilman Richard Alatorre.

A spokesman for Craig Black, the museum’s director, said Black would not comment on the abortive arboretum merger beyond what he and two top board officials said in the letter to Schabarum--dated May 31 and released by the museum Thursday.

Existence of the merger proposal was disclosed in April by The Times after a series of discussions between the museum and county Chief Administrative Officer Richard Dixon. The merger talks apparently had their origin in previously undisclosed discussions dating to April of 1989 in which the museum proposed that it take over the arboretum department.

The arboreta agency includes the state and county arboretum in Arcadia, Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge, the South Coast Botanic Gardens in Palos Verdes and the Virginia Robinson Estate in Beverly Hills. The museum complex includes the main facility in Exposition Park and the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.

The merged organization would also have provided new facilities for the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, an internationally known collection of bird science materials originally incorporated by Ed N. Harrison, president of the natural history museum’s county-appointed board of governors.

After the merger discussions were revealed, a variety of arboretum support groups launched a concerted protest, led by Alice Frost Thomas, president of the California Arboretum Foundation. The arboretum groups branded the takeover attempt a “land grab” and demanded that it be abandoned.

On Tuesday, arboretum supporters apparently got everything they asked for when the supervisors approved Antonovich’s motion to discontinue a feasibility study of the merger and to launch a nationwide search for a new arboretum director. The previous director, Francis Ching, retired earlier this year. Ching and arboretum supporters have contended he was forced out by the supervisors because he would not agree to the merger.

“We realized we were about to be swept under the rug and no one was doing anything about it,” Thomas said Thursday. She said arboretum support groups enthusiastically supported the board action terminating the merger study. “I just hope we can rapidly get a new director,” she said. “We really are without much direction at the moment.”

At the National Science Foundation in Washington, meanwhile, officials released a copy of the May 18 agreement between the foundation and the museum that terminated what had been an acrimonious dispute between the two organizations over the natural history museum’s grant eligibility. The museum was declared ineligible after a science foundation audit last year found numerous accounting deficiencies at the museum and demanded return of as much as $254,000 in government grants.

The settlement disclosed in the agreement released by the science foundation earlier this week indicated that the federal agency was satisfied with alterations in the museum’s accounting procedures. The amount of money the museum actually had to return was $63,601. The museum and the science foundation also signed a new agreement on rates the museum is entitled to charge on government grants to recover its indirect costs devoted to the research.

“We are pleased that we have signed an agreement that meets our mutual best interests,” said Black, who is the only museum director on the National Science Board--the science foundation’s governing body. “We look forward to continuing our cordial relationship.”