Repair, Preparedness Efforts Slowed, School District Says : Education: Officials say lack of funds and red tape are hindering measures to recover from the Jan. 17 earthquake and anticipate future disasters.

Progress in making earthquake repairs and preparing the Los Angeles school district for another major emergency is being hampered by a lack of money and communications problems between agencies, officials said Monday.

At a special Board of Education meeting, Los Angeles Unified School District officials said they want all staff members trained to better deal with emergencies, as well as more communications equipment and quicker approvals for money to pay for repairs on school campuses. But they said federal and state red tape is slowing the flow of funding to the district.

“It’s all about money,” board member Leticia Quezada said. “We’re not going to have a perfect system unless there are public dollars allocated to this.”

While the meeting did not focus directly on school repairs, officials said about 4,400 campus buildings sustained some earthquake damage and that federal approvals to pay for the repairs have been slow. About $73 million has been allocated to pay for campus damage; the district’s earthquake damage estimates range from $200 million to $600 million.

Doug Brown, the district’s facilities director, said the process is ineffective, with too many inspectors approving some projects and not others, and that decisions have been inconsistent at best. Additionally, Brown said the schools must be responsible for securing equipment such as bookcases and hanging pictures in the event of another earthquake.

“The securing of office equipment and classroom equipment has to be done at the site,” Brown said. “We don’t have the staff . . . to send people out to the schools.”

Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias said the schools also will be required to pay for the equipment necessary to bolt the bookcases and to secure televisions, computers and VCRs, among other things. Campuses could spend several hundred dollars to anchor the equipment.

While Zacarias said he believes most schools have the money necessary, he said the funds could come out of accounts used for books and supplies.

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The Jan. 17 earthquake caused widespread damage throughout the school system. All schools were closed for a week following the temblor. About a dozen schools opened after three weeks, and three campuses--dubbed by Brown as the “Big Three”--remained closed for six weeks. Those were John F. Kennedy and El Camino Real high schools and Van Gogh Street Elementary.

The school district is training six people in emergency preparedness from every campus--including teachers, administrators and clerical workers. But officials said they need more money and more time to conduct the training sessions.

Additionally, 2,500 school psychologists and mental health workers took a weeklong training session to deal with the psychological effects of a major emergency such as earthquakes. After the quake, 64,000 students and 15,000 parents received counseling. The district has about 640,000 students.

Officials also gave the board an update about earthquake supplies on school campuses. District critics had said the supplies were spotty and that first-aid kits had been ravaged at most campuses, leaving few basic emergency supplies.

New kits, however, will be distributed to schools next month. And the district is looking for money to provide cargo containers to hold more supplies for each of the 49 district high schools.

Regarding communications, officials said that they already have provided principals with pagers and that 70 administrators were given cellular phones.

But the district has been unsuccessful in getting the federal government to pay for the updated communications equipment. Roger Rasmussen, who is overseeing the funding proposals from the federal government, said the White House and the U.S. Department of Education have turned down funding requests. “We’re not giving up. We’re going to look at every funding source because we know it’s what our schools need.”