School Board Often Told of Looming Fiscal Crisis : Education: Top finance officer warned trustees about their spending practices at least 8 times in 3 years. He and others were suspended over a $130-million shortfall.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s top fiscal officer--whose suspension over a massive mid-year deficit has sparked concern among black civic leaders--had warned the Board of Education on at least eight occasions over the past three years that its spending practices were threatening the district’s financial future.

Finance chief Robert Booker, who is one of the district’s two highest-ranking black administrators, advised the board that the district was spending more than it was taking in, granting employee raises it could not afford and covering an increasing budget gap by unwisely borrowing from reserve accounts.

“This pattern cannot continue without a significant increase in the district’s income or decrease in its expenditures,” he told board members in a June, 1987, public hearing.

Two years later, he privately recommended that they reject the 8% annual raises teachers were granted to end a nine-day strike, warning that the pay hikes would force the district to make deep cuts in services or face escalating revenue shortages.

And as recently as last December, sources say Booker cautioned board members that the district’s financial footing was not secure enough to allow them to guarantee partial repayment this year of a 3% salary cut for all district employees. The board approved the repayment by a 5-2 vote.

Last month, as board members struggled to establish accountability for a mid-year budget shortfall projected at more than $130 million, they agreed in closed session to punish Booker and a dozen of his top fiscal aides for not accurately predicting the magnitude of the budget problems.

The administrators were issued reprimands and unpaid suspensions of up to five days. The suspensions could cost the top officials more than $2,000 each.

Because three of the budget managers targeted for disciplinary action are black--Booker, budget director Henry Jones and accounting chief Olonzo Woodfin--the suspensions have raised concerns among black civic leaders that the administrators are being unfairly singled out for punishment by the school board. Critics of the action, including Urban League head John Mack, say the board should share the blame.

The Black Leadership Coalition, representing more than 40 community groups, requested a meeting with district Supt. Bill Anton todayto raise those concerns.

Over the years, Booker and his staff have been hailed by budget officials in school districts across the state for their expertise in managing the district’s mammoth $4-billion budget. Booker, a 36-year district veteran, has headed the financial division since 1980.

“I’d rate Bob Booker and Henry Jones and Lonnie Woodfin up there at the top levels,” San Diego Unified’s deputy controller Richard Knott told The Times last month, after the deficit was revealed. “There’s no doubt as to their competency and abilities.”

Mid-year deficits are not uncommon among the state’s school districts. But officials across the state were shocked by the January disclosure that Los Angeles district budget analysts were off by more than $130 million in their projections for this year.

An outside accounting firm hired to review the shortfall identified several causes, including an inadequate computer system and an unanticipated decline in lottery revenues. About $45 million of the deficit was attributed to errors or miscommunication by district staff. Another $11 million was blamed on policy reversals by the school board.

District sources say this is the first time in Los Angeles Unified history that top budget officials have been punished for making inaccurate projections.

District officials have declined to publicly comment on the suspensions, but one top official told The Times the discipline was deemed necessary “because the magnitude of the mistake . . . undermined the credibility of the top district staff.”