Anton ‘Optimistic’ School Funds Will Be Recovered

Los Angeles Schools Supt. William R. Anton, facing criticism because the district missed a state deadline to spend $18.7 million for renovating 23 schools, has told a Wilmington gathering that he remains optimistic that the money will soon be recovered to improve the schools, two of them in Wilmington.

“We don’t know what the final result will be, but we are optimistic,” Anton said Thursday night during an appearance before the Wilmington Home Owners at Banning Park Recreation Center. “We need that money.”

Anton’s hourlong appearance in the harbor area, his first since being appointed head of the nation’s second-largest school district last month, drew a crowd of about 60 residents. And though the group asked about everything from school curriculum to crime, the most often-asked question dealt with the district’s plans to safeguard funds for improving old, overcrowded schools.

That issue has drawn the district’s attention ever since a Wilmington Park Elementary School employee in June alerted officials that the school would lose $1.4 million for improvements unless the district met a state deadline for spending the money.

The warning by Irma Castillo, a community representative at Wilmington Park Elementary, prompted an immediate review by the district of funds already returned--or about to be returned--to the State Allocation Board, which oversees the distribution of construction funds for schools throughout California.

The school board’s review found that $18.7 million had already been returned to the state because district planners, focusing on funds for new schools, had not met a one-year state deadline for spending the money allocated for renovating 23 existing schools, including two in Wilmington. The funds returned to the state included $1.2 million for Fries Avenue Elementary and $767,000 for Gulf Avenue Elementary.

In addition, the board discovered that another $11.4 million was at risk of being returned to the state. That amount includes the money for Wilmington Park Elementary and $323,000 for Dinker Elementary in Gardena.

On Monday, the board is scheduled to debate a new district policy that would have planners immediately focus on the money for renovating, not building, schools. In addition, the board is expected to authorize its staff to negotiate with the state to recover the money as quickly as possible.

Troubled that two Wilmington schools may again wait years for renovations, several residents pointedly asked Anton how the funds slipped away and how long local students must endure buildings and classrooms built in the 1920s.

“Those schools have already waited four to five years for the money. Are they going to have to wait another four to five years?” asked one resident.

Anton said that he could not predict when the money would be available but that the district’s staff has already begun preliminary talks with the state to recover the $18.7 million as quickly as possible.

“Well, who was sleeping on the job for these (deadline) dates to be missed?” another Wilmington resident asked.

“You could say everybody and nobody,” Anton replied, blaming the problem on a state funding formula that confounded district officials.

The formula, he said, not only considered a school’s age and needs but the date its application was received by the state. And with fierce competition statewide for funding, Anton said, Los Angeles school officials simply rushed to seek state money without enough staff to immediately ensure that the construction projects got under way.

“So we were cranking out tons of applications . . . realizing when we got the money, we might be overloaded,” Anton said. “And that’s just what happened.”

Harbor area school board member Warren Furutani, who accompanied Anton to the meeting, told the group that he also expects the funds to be returned.

“We are not going to lose that money,” he said.