Antelope Valley Schools’ Debt a Result of 3-Year Slide : Education: Records show the district has overspent since 1989. But officials say the $4.6-million deficit surprised them.

Financial records showed Friday that the Antelope Valley Union High School District, which was put under county supervision after discovery of a projected $4.6-million deficit, has been sinking quietly into debt for three years. But district officials said the shortfall caught them by surprise.

Dist. Supt. Kenneth Brummel blamed the deficit on mistakes by former employees and a former auditing firm. But Brummel said he became aware of the looming deficit only after receiving a new auditor’s report in December.

“It’s a very serious problem and one we’re addressing as quickly as we can,” the superintendent said. But until several months ago, he added, “we really were not given information to worry a great deal about the financial situation of the district.”

District officials, who run six schools with nearly 13,000 students, are scrambling to cut $4.6 million--or nearly 10% of their budget--in the next 3 1/2 months.

Layoffs are virtually inevitable, Brummel said Friday, but he would not predict how many might occur.

The Antelope Valley school district was the only one of 82 in Los Angeles County to finish the past fiscal year in debt--about $900,000--which is illegal under state law, Los Angeles County Office of Education officials said. The district made the deficit public this week, disclosing that the county education office had appointed a monitor to oversee the district’s finances. It is the first time the education office has taken such a step.

The district’s governing board is scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss possible cutbacks and probably will make a final decision the following week. Under state laws requiring warning for them, teachers could not be laid off until the next school year. But administrators and clerical and maintenance workers could be given 30-day notices.

Although the huge projected deficit was announced only this week, the recent audit that triggered its discovery paints a three-year picture of decline that sent the district from a $4.4-million surplus in mid-1989 to its current projected $4.6-million debt by July.

The audit, by the La Verne-based accounting firm of Vicenti, Lloyd & Stutzman, showed the district spent $2.1 million more than it took in from mid-1989 to mid-1990, and then overspent by another $2.9 million from mid-1990 to mid-1991, ending the past fiscal year $904,814 in debt.

The deficit then grew to its current level in part because district officials last spring, before the new audit, prepared a budget for this year that assumed they were starting with several million dollars on hand when actually they were nearly $1 million in debt.

In addition, the audit and other district financial records show that revenues often have been overestimated and expenses underestimated, especially for employee salaries and benefits, which account for about 80% of the district’s $50-million operating budget this year.

Brummel said he was unaware of the deficit spending before he received the new audit in December. And a former member of the high school district’s board of trustees agreed Friday, saying board members knew of no problems in recent years.

“I know we were a little tight, but I had no idea whatsoever we were in any kind of financial problem. Brummel was being informed by his assistants everything was in good shape,” said former board member Jarold Wright, who decided not to seek reelection last November.

Brummel blamed the problem in part on financial mistakes by two former top district officials--Darlene Hinkel, assistant superintendent for business services, and John Joy, fiscal services director. Other sources in the district management said the debt was a factor in their leaving recently, but Brummel would not discuss that.

Brummel also blamed Baker & Roberts, the accounting firm with offices in El Monte and Oxnard that conducted the district’s 1989 and 1990 audits, for not alerting him to the rising debts.

Neither the accounting firm nor the two former district officials could be reached for comment Friday.