County Funds Cut for 180 Crossing Guards : Schools: Area districts scramble to find money to pay people who escort children across streets after $1.7 million was omitted from the budget.

Crossing guards at 132 schools across Los Angeles County are officially dropped from the payroll beginning today because $1.7 million was inadvertently omitted from the county budget, officials said Tuesday.

The money, used to pay 180 guards at an annual cost of almost $10,000 per guard, was not included in the budget adopted last month, leaving children to cross streets unsupervised unless officials come up with the funds.

Although only a fraction of 132 elementary schools with county-provided guards are in session, absence of the guards will be apparent next month when traditional school schedules begin, said Phil Kauble, head of the crossing guard program for the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

“I would say the obvious impact is the potential for disaster,” Kauble said. “Any time you have kids crossing a street, even a controlled intersection . . . it puts students at risk.”

The county education office learned earlier this month that no funds had been set aside in the $13.5-billion county budget for the 15-year-old program. Officials were not sure how the program, administered through the Los Angeles County Public Works Department, was overlooked.

“We were notified Aug. 2 that the program would no longer be effective Aug. 1,” Kauble said. ‘It’s one of those items that’s normally buried deeply in the budget package. I don’t really think (the supervisors) knew what they were voting. It was something that just unfortunately fell through the cracks.”

In the meantime, county school officials have agreed to cover costs for guards for 15 schools that are now in session in hopes that the county will be able to come up with funding. That commitment ended Tuesday. The guards work in 34 school districts in unincorporated portions of Los Angeles County as far north as Castaic and south as Hawthorne.

Supervisor Michael Antonovich proposed Tuesday that the county cover 20% of the program’s cost--about $340,000--leaving the remaining 80%, or $1.36 million, to be picked up by the school districts.

“With hundreds of thousands of children preparing to return to school within the next few weeks, it is unthinkable that they should be left to fend for themselves at busy and dangerous crossings throughout the county,” he said.

Antonovich’s proposal called for using projected savings from proposed county salary cuts to fund the crossing guard program. However, he said the supervisors would not be able to vote on his proposal until next week at the earliest.

Any expenses not paid by the county will be passed on to those districts with guards, said Frank Kwan, director of communications for the Los Angeles County Board of Education.

“We didn’t generate funds for this program,” Kwan said. “It’s going to have to come from the individual districts. We can’t offer them any solutions in that respect.”

With all of its schools on year-round schedules, the Palmdale School District scrambled earlier this month to retain its four guards previously provided by the county.

“As we try to work through the options, we’ve taken them on as substitute employees,” said Nancy Smith, assistant superintendent of business services for the district.

Like other districts, Palmdale is waiting to see how much Los Angeles County will eventually provide for the guards. Officials hope to avoid what would be a $40,000 expense not projected in their budget this year.

“It would obviously not be our choice, but the safety of our children comes first,” Smith said.

Three crossing guards normally staff intersections near Castaic Elementary School to help youngsters avoid dangerous truck traffic.

Irene Massey, president of the Castaic Union School District board, is not sure how the district will come up with funds before classes begin next month.

“It was not something that was foreseen or planned for,” Massey said. “It will be a serious problem. Something will have to be in place when school starts in September.”

Maintenance workers, teachers and parents have volunteered their time to supervise Castaic street crossings in the past and may be called upon to do so again, Massey said. However, districts using volunteers face additional liability issues.