ELECTIONS / L.A. SCHOOL BOARD : Korenstein, Brent Move to Forefront in Battle for Funds

In the race to represent the mid-San Fernando Valley on the Los Angeles Board of Education, incumbent Julie Korenstein and challenger Eli Brent have moved out front in a campaign-funding battle pitting the financial backing of the teachers union against the administrators union.

In the other school board contest involving the Valley, incumbent Mark Slavkin, who is seeking a second term, is outdistancing all his rivals in campaign contributions.

The figures were revealed Thursday when the candidates filed their final election financing reports for the April 20 election.

Korenstein led the four-candidate District 6 race with $44,142 in contributions during the reporting period of March 7 to April 3. That boosted her cumulative total to $50,311, of which $27,492--more than half--came from United Teachers-Los Angeles, which endorsed Korenstein’s bid for a third term.

Brent, head of the union that represents middle managers such as principals, was close behind Korenstein with $44,573, having raised $27,396 in the most recent period. Brent received $5,000 from his union, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles. He received another $4,425 from another administrators’ group and individual administrators, including $600 from former Supt. William Anton and his wife, and $500 from the campaign organization of Barbara Boudreaux, a former school principal elected to the board in 1991.

Brent also received $5,000 from the Los Angeles City & County School Employees Union, which represents clerical and other employees.

The administrators and the clerical group have clashed bitterly with the teachers over this year’s cumulative 12% pay cuts--which they accepted and the teachers rejected--and subsequent proposals to dip into school supply funds to make up the difference between the 12% and the 10% pay cut that the teachers finally agreed to.

A third candidate in District 6, Lynne Kuznetsky, a teacher who lives in Encino, reported $19,394 in contributions, but $16,000 of that consisted of a loan from herself.

“I don’t want to be involved in special interest groups,” Kuznetsky said. “They expect favors back from you.”

Korenstein and Brent each characterized the other as representing narrow union interests, but asserted that their own support comes from across the educational spectrum.

Brent said he has received about half his money from teachers and parents who donated less than $100, and therefore are not required by state law to be identified in the campaign report.

“What they’re saying is they like to have a balance on the board,” Brent said. “They want to break the stranglehold of four bought-and-paid-for union members on the Board of Education. . . . I think it’s appalling that any employee has to take a pay cut to fund any organization. It’s inefficient. It’s mismanagement. People are just fed up.”

Countering, Korenstein said Brent “is part of the good ol’ boys’ club, and they support one another. There’s nothing that they’d want more than to have one of their own on the Board of Education.”

Korenstein said her support includes “lots and lots of grass-roots people sending in checks. . . . I am supported by teachers, without any question at all. But I’m supported by administrators as well. There are a lot of administrators who won’t give more than $99 because they don’t want their name on the financial statement.”

In the District 4 race, Slavkin reported raising $23,490 in the period, increasing his total for the campaign to $48,066. His nearest opponent was Judith R. Solkovits, 58, of Northridge, who reported raising $590 in the period, bringing her total contributions to $990. Teacher Douglas Lasken of Woodland Hills, who voluntarily limited his campaign spending to $1,000, said he took in no new funds this period.