Administrator for Compton Schools to Get Broad Powers : Education: Wilson signs legislation to provide a $10.5-million emergency loan and state officials begin reviewing candidates to run the district. The local board will be reduced to an advisory role.

Even before the ink was dry on legislation to bail out the Compton Unified School District, state education authorities were moving Thursday to install an administrator to oversee the financially and educationally troubled school system.

As Gov. Pete Wilson signed legislation to provide a $10.5-million emergency loan to the 29,000-student district, the state Department of Education was scrambling to find an interim administrator and reviewing applications from 30 educators already lined up as possibilities for the long-term assignment beginning at the end of this month.

Under the legislation, the administrator will have broad powers to overhaul the district’s education and fiscal programs. The locally elected school board will be relegated to an advisory body and the superintendent will report to the state administrator, according to Bill Chavez of the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

“I take no pleasure in this,” said Assemblyman Willard Murray (D-Paramount), who has been an outspoken critic of the Compton schools since he was elected in 1988 to a district that includes Compton.

“I’ll take pleasure when the children start to learn,” Murray said. “I’ve concluded that the present school board and Administration collectively are incapable of providing the direction for educating the children in that district.”

In a prepared statement, Wilson said he reluctantly signed the measure in order to not harm children, employees and businesses that contract with the district.

Now, he said, “It is imperative that an administrator who will assume the powers of the governing board be appointed immediately. He or she must determine the reasons for the financial condition of the district so that corrective action can begin as soon as possible.”

With Wilson’s signature on the legislation, Compton becomes the third school district in the state run by state officials, according to the state Department of Education. The others are districts in Coachella and Richmond.

Wilson’s action came as state Controller Gray Davis released a preliminary report warning of the financial challenges facing the state’s school districts. It cited 27 districts facing financial difficulties, including six others in Los Angeles County--the Los Angeles Unified School District, Antelope Valley Union High District, Centinela Valley Union High District, Inglewood Unified, Montebello Unified and Soledad-Agua Dulce Union Elementary in the Antelope Valley.

Edd Fong, a spokesman for Davis, said that Compton’s fiscal situation was the most serious in California. “If they don’t get the loan from the state, they won’t be able to pay their bills,” Fong said.

As a consequence, the new administrator will face a major challenge of turning around the racially and ethnically diverse Compton district.

“You’ve got a district that’s having a lot of problems in terms of academic performance as well as insolvency,” Chavez said. The district’s test scores have traditionally been among the lowest in the state.

A harshly worded county report in May said that political cronyism and mismanagement have sent the district into an academic and financial tailspin in which the desires of adults running its schools have regularly taken precedence over the needs of students.

The major factor contributing to the district’s financial distress was a 1990-91 salary settlement, according to county officials. They estimated that the district’s salary costs increased by about $9 million annually because of the settlement in which teachers received a 17% raise.

The report was triggered by legislation carried by Murray. Last year, Murray also pushed a bill that would have allowed the district to have been the first in California to be taken over for academic deficiencies. Wilson vetoed it but warned that he would consider signing a similar proposal if the schools did not improve.

Board member Amen Rahh, who has opposed Murray’s bills to overhaul the district, said he welcomed the bailout money but contended that “it’s really a situation that the district could have worked out.”

But he said the money provided by the legislation “isn’t enough. We need more money. That money will not stop one layoff.”

Independent auditors have said the district’s red ink totals about $17.8 million, but lawmakers were unwilling to provide the full amount. The rest of the shortfall will have to be met by cutting payroll and programs, and negotiating long-term debt payments, officials said.

The responsibility for turning Compton around will fall to the state-appointed administrator.

William Rukeyser, a spokesman for acting schools chief William Dawson, said the state “will be moving as quickly as humanly possible” to appoint the administrator.

He said the state will set up a selection committee that will include a cross-section of people. However, Rukeyser could not immediately say whether it will include any Compton residents.

Murray said he has urged state officials to appoint an administrator who could take the necessary steps even if they are unpopular.