Inglewood Schools Get New Adviser
County education officials have appointed former El Segundo schools chief Richard V. Bertain as the fiscal adviser for the troubled Inglewood Unified School District.
The 63-year-old Bertain will start Monday, according to an announcement Friday by Stuart E. Gothold, Los Angeles County superintendent of schools.
With the district in poor financial shape, county officials two weeks ago notified Inglewood that it would appoint an overseer with the power to veto or rescind any financial decisions by the school board. County education officials have said the district is about $2 million in the red.
Until January, Bertain was an associate director of domestic and anti-poverty operations for the federal agency that oversees such social service programs as Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and Foster Grandparents. He was appointed to that position in 1990, the year he left El Segundo.
Bertain, who holds graduate degrees in education from San Diego State and Harvard, is regarded by other educators as conservative when it comes to school finance.
Bertain, who will report directly to Gothold, will earn about $85,000 a year, which must be paid by the district. He is expected to stay there about a year.
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