Review Finds Inglewood District Lacks Leadership : Education: Panel says that school board underestimated budget crisis. It warns that administrators must cooperate.

The Inglewood school board underestimated the severity of its budget problems and during the last two years failed to act quickly enough to avert its current fiscal crisis, according to a trio of outside experts sent by the state to evaluate the district.

Furthermore, the panel said Friday, the district has lost sight of its purpose, failing to do what is best for the children.

“Everything else must come second,” warned Peter Yasitis, a member of the panel and associate superintendent of Alameda County schools in Northern California.

Painting a picture of a district short on leadership and long on problems, the panel said conditions will only worsen if school board members and top administrators in the system continue blaming outside forces for the poor finances and refuse to cooperate with one another to develop better management practices and fiscal strategies.

The panel also said the school board has interfered with hiring, firing and promotions, that some management positions are held by people without proper training, and that annual audit reports do not contain findings and recommendations--a “highly unusual” situation.

The panel, which spent three days in the district interviewing staff and administrators and reviewing financial data, gave an oral summary of its findings Friday for district employees, parents and others. A written report will be released by Oct. 31.

Yasitis said the Inglewood Unified School District is at a critical crossroads. Referring to two California school districts whose managements were taken over by the state because of crippling financial and educational problems, he said Inglewood “can either become the next Richmond, the next Compton or it can become a positive educational force in this community and in this county.”

Only two board members, Larry Aubrey and Dexter Henderson, attended the panel’s presentation and neither was available for comment afterward.

Inglewood’s budget crisis is so severe that it has had to lay off about a dozen teachers, as well as other staff members, and close the district’s continuation high school. That cut about $2.3 million from this year’s budget but still left the district several hundred-thousand dollars short.

Despite its problems, Inglewood has had to accept only a financial overseer assigned in August by the county superintendent of schools, who said the district had come dangerously close to insolvency.

The same night the county assigned an overseer, the board voted 3-2 not to renew Supt. George McKenna’s contract when it runs out in June. But McKenna has said that he will fight during the coming months to keep his job.

On Friday, McKenna said that although he disagreed with some of the panel’s findings, saying it had too little time to study the district, he would not shirk from carrying out its recommendations.

“As superintendent,” he said, “I think I have an obligation for accepting the charge to make right what is not and to improve what is and to support those people who are doing their jobs. That’s my obligation, so I will not duck any responsibility to fix what needs to be put right.”

Despite McKenna’s clouded job prospects, the panel urged the board and the superintendent to begin a series of “collaborative workshops” to improve communication and resolve their differences for the sake of the district.

“Staff and parents are crying out for leadership” and management and the board must take advantage of this positive attitude and lead, Yasitis said in summarizing the panel’s findings.

Among the findings most likely to have immediate consequences is that labor union contracts are too costly because management and the board have been too generous with work provisions and fringe benefits.

Work contracts, said panel member Tom Godley, assistant superintendent in the Newport Mesa School District, have “locked” the district into spending that it cannot afford. He cited free health insurance for all dependents of district employees, which he called “fiscally impractical.”

The panel said it found insurance rolls contained the names of deceased dependents and people who did not qualify as dependents. McKenna said the district has already ordered employees to produce proof of dependency for everyone listed on the rolls.

Godley also pointed to contract provisions that limit the size of classes at the secondary level, saying they are costing the district too much money.

The district and its labor unions are still trying to reach a settlement on contracts for this work year. Given the panel’s findings, teachers and other staff will be under pressure to give up or trade off some fringe benefits.

Worker’s compensation costs in Inglewood are far higher than in comparable districts, the panel said. Inglewood’s cost is 6.8% of payroll, where in the other districts, the panel said, the cost is between 1.5% and 2%. The panel did not, however, say why Inglewood’s costs were higher.

Substitute-teacher costs are also excessive, the panel found, and vary widely from school to school. High absenteeism among teachers, the panel said, indicates morale problems in certain schools.

Carole Bailey, the third member of the panel and retired director of fiscal services for Capistrano Unified School District, said audit reports were of little help to her and her two colleagues because they did not contain any findings and recommendations.

The district, she said, had for years used an auditor, Huffman and Company of Corona, whose work has been declared by the state controller’s office to be “deficient” and “substandard.” This year, the district hired a new auditor.

The district cannot continue blaming the state for its financial woes, the panel said. It must work with the available resources, knowing that over the next few years, the school funding picture is not going to get better.