Funds OKd for Panel to Split Schools : Education: Roberti secures $1 million to pay for the commission to dismantle the L.A. district.

State Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) tucked $1 million into the new state budget to pay for the cost of a 26-member commission that he is seeking to establish to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Roberti’s legislation to dismantle the 640,000-student district into at least seven smaller districts was approved last month by the Senate and is pending in the Assembly Education Committee.

To ensure that the panel would get off to a running start, Roberti squirted the $1 million into the $52.1-billion state budget signed late Wednesday by Gov. Pete Wilson.

“It means the commission is funded to do its work in quick time,” said Steve Glazer, a spokesman for Roberti.

Once the commission devises a breakup plan, the legislation directs it to put the issue before Los Angeles voters in November, 1994.

Bill Lambert, a lobbyist for United Teachers-Los Angeles, which opposes the legislation, said that by placing the commission’s funding into the state budget, rather than in the breakup measure, legislative fiscal review committees did not have an opportunity to give as much attention to the cost issue.

Lambert said he believes that the money “should have been put into materials in the district or something usable for children” instead of being earmarked for the commission.