Funds for Aides, Supplies Held to Pay Teachers

Hundreds of schools are preparing to lay off teachers’ aides and cut back on classroom supplies for next year because the Los Angeles Unified School District refuses to unfreeze $60 million being held in reserve to fund in part the contract with its teachers.

Despite the infusion of $35 million from the state to pay for the contract this year, district officials say the money in special accounts campuses use for textbooks, supplies and bilingual programs may be needed next year to pay the $36 million the second year of the contract will cost.

With a projected $143-million shortfall next year, district budget chief Henry Jones said the $60 million in those accounts may also be needed to keep the district from insolvency.

The spending restrictions have come as a blow to parents, teachers and principals across the district, who are in the process of developing school budgets for the fall. Uncertain how much money they will have for next year, they have begun paring classroom supply lists and notifying teachers’ aides that they may be let go.

“We’re all very angry. Money is needlessly being taken away from our children. Schools are being forced to drastically cut down,” said Jose Luis Castellos, director of the district’s Bilingual-Bicultural Advisory Committee.

Allocations for bilingual education have been especially hard hit, with $16 million frozen. That has forced schools to cut from their budgets $96 out of the $265 allotted to each limited-English-speaking student’s special needs, such as books or teachers’ aides.

But district officials said there is no choice. “We want to review those programs in the context of the overall budget situation,” Jones said.

School board President Leticia Quezada said the funds must remain frozen for the time being to give the board maximum flexibility during another stinging round of budget cuts. She said her goal is to “provide the best budget package possible” to minimize effects at schools.

Although Quezada agreed the freeze is hard on schools, she said it must be carefully weighed against the potential for other staff cuts affecting school nurses, attendance counselors and music teachers.

And state officials said the district is making a painful but prudent move to avert financial disaster caused by a combination of the price tag for the teachers’ contract and the shrinking of state resources available for education.

“The district should not be faulted for freezing those accounts, especially given the uncertainty of the state budget and the prospect that they’ll be getting no cost-of-living increases next year,” said Maureen DiMarco, state secretary of child development and education.

“It may be the district will have to attempt to use that money to pay for the contract. Directly or indirectly, this is the cost of funding that teachers’ contract. The bill has come due and this is the horrible outcome of now having to pay it.”

The district first froze the money in late February after Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) negotiated a two-year settlement with the teachers union that scaled back the pay cut the district had proposed from 12% to 10%, at a cost to the district of approximately $36 million a year.

Lacking adequate resources to fund the deal, the district froze money in campus accounts that are restricted for items such as textbooks, classroom supplies and bilingual program activities.

The district never sought the necessary waivers from the state to use those funds for teacher salaries, however, and subsequently received from the state $35 million in previously unclaimed desegregation funds that could be applied to reduce teacher pay cuts. That made the use of the restricted funds unnecessary for this school year and led many parents and teachers to believe they would have access to that money.

“Teachers and parents and school staffs fully expected that money to be unfrozen and that’s what the school board should do,” United Teachers-Los Angeles spokeswoman Cathy Carey said.

“Why punish all the parents and students and professionals at a school site by forcing them to have teacher aides and teacher assistants in danger of being let go while the district is sitting on that money? Why put people through that stress when the desegregation money will (probably) be available again next year (to help pay teachers’ salaries)?” she asked.

At Aragon Elementary School, for instance, seven bilingual aides have been notified that they may not have jobs next fall, said Martha Cardenas, a parent and member of the district’s bilingual commission.

“We should have that money for our children,” Cardenas said. “Our children should not be hurt. That money belongs to them.”

District budget officials not only want to save the restricted money in reserve for next year, but also have used it to bolster their balance for the end of this fiscal year, a move that district officials said was prudent financial planning.

“The bottom line is that the district will end the year in the black,” said budget director Jones. In the next two months, as the Board of Education develops its budget for next year, members could decide to lift next year’s freeze.

The restricted funds give the district a year-end surplus balance of $55.6 million. School officials hope this will prompt Los Angeles County Schools Supt. Stuart Gothold to upgrade the district’s financial standing, which he downgraded two months ago.

Jones’ budget projection for next year was released as the district’s budget practices came under fire for the second time in less than a week.

A state-financed audit of the budget department, obtained by The Times, said a lack of adequate technology prevents the district from “generating timely and comprehensive” financial reports.

The report concluded that the district’s network of personal computers is “inadequate to support the basic financial informational needs of a large complex organization” and cannot provide officials with the up-to-date information they need to make wise fiscal decisions.

The audit, commissioned by state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), did not investigate whether money was improperly spent or allocated, but focused solely on whether the district’s method of keeping its books is in line with current technology and budget practices.

Roberti commissioned the $75,000 report after state auditors had trouble extracting information from the district’s budget officials and from documents during a fiscal review last fall.

* SCHOOL REFORM: Board approves LEARN program for 37 campuses. B3