ABC Board Defies County, OKs Bonuses : Education: Critics say the $1.3-million action threatens the school district’s solvency. The vote may be nullified by a fiscal adviser who was appointed Monday.

A divided ABC school board has approved bonus pay for teachers in defiance of county education officials, who warned that the action could worsen financial woes that threaten to bankrupt the school system.

The bonus pay was included in a controversial teachers’ contract that the school board approved 4 to 3 near the close of a five-hour meeting punctuated by finger-pointing among trustees.

County officials, in a letter to the district, had directed the school board not to approve the contract before knowing if there is money to pay for it.

The trustees’ action at Tuesday’s meeting could be nullified by a county fiscal adviser who has the authority to veto district spending decisions. The county education office appointed a fiscal adviser Monday to resolve months of budget wrangling between staff and school board members of the ABC Unified School District.

The board majority said that the district could afford the contract and that teachers and students would benefit.

“The children deserve to have the best learning conditions available to them,” board member David Montgomery said. “That is the main reason I’m voting tonight for this agreement.”

Montgomery’s remarks drew mostly cheers from an audience of 200, primarily teachers and their supporters.

The teachers contract calls for a one-time bonus of 1% plus a slight reduction in class sizes. The agreement essentially restores pay cuts and eliminates larger class sizes imposed on teachers last fall by the previous school board. A new board majority, backed by teachers, took the reins following November’s school board election and an 11-day teachers’ strike over the imposed contract.

Critics of the new contract, including three board members, warned that approving the pact, which has a $1.3-million price tag, could break the district’s $69-million budget.

“It would be fiscally irresponsible to support the tentative agreement,” board member Dixie Primosch said before voting against the pact.

“We’ve gone from one of the most respected districts in the state to one that’s got a fiscal adviser,” said board member Robert Hughlett, who also opposed the contract. “I lay the blame at the feet of the majority.”

The fate of the contract and district finances ultimately rests with the county office of education, said Kenneth Shelton, an assistant county school superintendent.

The fiscal adviser appointed by the county would have broad powers to alter ABC’s current spending plan, including the authority to veto decisions that would normally be made by the seven-member board or its administrators.

Shelton said the county education office has not decided whether to void the teachers contract. He said the fiscal adviser, who has not yet been named, will first study whether the district can afford the contract.

Shelton added that the county’s intervention should not be viewed as a hostile takeover. It’s a “friendly” effort to help the district remain solvent, he said.

County and district staff members have said that ABC is spending more money than it is receiving, and that the spending deficit, if it continues, will approach $2.8 million at the end of the next school year. Such a deficit would consume nearly all of the district’s reserves, leaving the school system of 21,000 students on the brink of insolvency.

Board President Cecy Groom has questioned the gloomy financial assessment. She said the board plans to ask county education officials to reconsider their appointment of an adviser.

ABC Unified, which serves Cerritos, Artesia, Hawaiian Gardens and parts of Lakewood and Norwalk, is one of six school districts statewide to be assigned a fiscal adviser in the last 18 months, said Patrick Keegan, an assistant superintendent with the state Department of Education. Three of the other districts are in Los Angeles County.

Assigning a fiscal adviser is one of a series of steps that the state has established to help districts resolve financial problems. Districts that become insolvent fall under state control.

In the nearby Compton Unified School District, for example, a state-appointed administrator took over in July after the state granted the district about $20 million in emergency loans.

At Tuesday’s ABC school board meeting, some teachers and parents protested the county intervention.

“I hope the board of education stands up to the county,” said Laura Rico, co-president of the ABC Federation of Teachers.

Others welcomed the county’s involvement.

“I’m kind of relieved,” said Wendy Wald, a parent of two Cerritos High School students. “I feel like now we can straighten out the mess.”

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Community correspondent John D. Wagner contributed to this story.