L.A. School Board Punishes Officials for Budget Deficit : Education: Several managers, including top financial officer, are disciplined for $130-million shortfall.

The Los Angeles school board has taken the unprecedented step of punishing more than a dozen of its top fiscal managers--including chief financial officer Robert Booker--for contributing to the district’s embarrassing $130-million midyear deficit.

The punishment, ranging from letters of reprimand to five-day suspensions without pay, was recommended by Supt. Bill Anton and approved by the school board in a private meeting last month, sources told The Times.

In addition to Booker, those disciplined include budget chief Henry Jones, business manager Dave Koch and accounting manager Olonzo Woodfin. Anton will also accept a five-day suspension, sources said, although he has publicly disavowed any direct responsibility for the budget mess.

Jones is reportedly serving his five-day suspension this week, but others, including Booker, have indicated they may challenge the suspensions rather than accept the blame for a series of errors that led to the midyear shortfall, which officials disclosed in January.

Reached at his office Tuesday, Booker refused to comment on the suspension. Jones, Koch and Woodfin could not be reached for comment.

Anton, citing advice from the district’s legal counsel, said it would be inappropriate to comment on matters involving employee discipline. But he confirmed that he intends to share in whatever punishment is meted out. “My view is I’m in charge,” he said. “If there’s a responsibility, I ought to share part of it too.”

In a letter last month to the administrators targeted for discipline, Anton called the group “the most qualified in the state to prepare budgets and analyze financial data.” But, he said, they could not “escape the embarrassment that our budget shortfall has brought down on our district.”

“Probably the most painful action in my 40 years with this district is disciplining employees who properly are among the most respected in their callings . . . but who, to varying degrees, share responsibility for our budgetary embarrassment,” the letter said.

“The budget matter . . . is a single isolated occurrence within an area of responsibility among so many that you handle so well.”

The deficit was announced by Booker in January, when a year-end review revealed that district spending had exceeded budgeted amounts by about $110 million, and revenue had fallen more than $20 million short of projections.

That forced the school board--which had already slashed $275 million from this year’s budget by laying off teachers, increasing class size and cutting employee salaries--to cover the shortfall by borrowing from the district’s insurance funds and emergency reserve account, and cutting deeper into maintenance and school supply budgets.

A review of the shortfall by an outside accounting firm failed to ascribe blame for the miscalculations to individuals, but pointed to several factors, including the district’s inadequate computer system, the failure of staff members to relay information between departments and higher-than-expected costs for employee medical benefits.

The suspensions--while not made public--have been the subject of rumors for weeks among some of the city’s most influential black leaders, who have expressed concerns that several of the district’s highest-ranking black administrators are being singled out for the most severe punishment. Booker, Jones and Woodfin are black.

On Thursday, Anton is scheduled to discuss the issue with members of the city’s Black Leadership Coalition, which represents 40 community organizations, including the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League and Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“As far as the Black Leadership Coalition is concerned, we are not going to stand idly by while African-American administrators are made scapegoats by the board and the superintendent to placate their constituencies and excuse some of their own poor decision-making,” said John Mack, head of the Urban League.

“This district has had fiscal problems for several years and the problems are getting worse,” he said. “I find it hard to believe that the responsibility for those financial woes should be placed primarily at the doorstep of Bob Booker and his colleagues.”

Mack said the group is not suggesting that administrators should not be held accountable for mistakes that led to the budget deficit, “but we just want to make sure the board assumes their responsibilities as policy-makers.”

In fact, the outside audit concluded that more than $11 million of the $130-million shortfall could be directly attributed to decisions made by the school board, including reversals of earlier budget cuts or delays in implementing money-saving measures.

Board member Barbara Boudreaux--the board’s only black representative--said that for that reason she does not support the punishment of staff members.

“Ever since 1986, Bob Booker has been warning this school district that our budget practices were dangerous, that we were eating into our reserves and creating problems for the future,” Boudreaux said.

“But the board ignored his advice it and did it anyway. And now they’re willing to sacrifice him because we’ve gotten caught in a budget dilemma.”