Plans for L.A. School District’s Holiday Bash Under Scrutiny

It was touted as “more than just a holiday party.”

Eight months in the planning, the annual bash at a posh downtown hotel was going to be “quite a perk” for hundreds of employees in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s beleaguered finance group.

But a whistle blower let on just how much of a perk it might be.

A 15-page package received this week by Supt. Ruben Zacarias and all seven school board members contained memos, sign-up sheets and meeting minutes all seeming to suggest that the party had occupied more than a dozen employees on and off since May at taxpayer expense.

Now, Zacarias is hunkered down with the district’s legal counsel and finance department heads, trying to figure out how much school district time was spent and whether any employees should be disciplined.

Even though school officials believe the transgressions were minor, the flap adds one more blemish to a bureaucracy widely perceived as so wasteful and inefficient that it cannot make textbooks available to all students.

The Dec. 18 event at the Hotel Inter-Continental will still go on, embarrassed school officials said, but under a cloud of self-examination over just how much holiday spirit is too much.

In a terse memo distributed to all district employees Thursday, Zacarias tried to set boundaries without flatly banning the use of staff time to plan spirit-building events.

“I recognize the benefit of celebrations which improve staff morale and foster team building,” Zacarias said. “However, any staff time and district resources devoted to planning these activities should be kept to a minimum.”

District spokesman Brad Sales said that an investigation continues and could lead to disciplinary action. However, he described the allegations as “somewhat of a tempest in a teapot,” since holiday parties are a nearly universal tradition in public and private sectors.

Officials in Los Angeles city and county governments agreed that holiday parties usually involve an expenditure of staff time, a practice they say is justified under the theory that building morale improves service to the public.

Though no formal policies apply, the burden falls on managers to prevent excess, said Rebecca Avila, executive director of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.

“It is a matter of judgment,” Avila said. “City resources for city business. That’s the policy.”

“We sort of all know that you don’t do something stupid,” agreed Tyler McCauley, assistant auditor-controller for Los Angeles County.

Based on reports of the elaborate planning of the school district’s finance group, most officials found it well over the appropriate limit.

Sales said it appeared that about 100 hours were spent on the finance department party, a figure that “seemed beyond the line.”

“If accurate, this information is troubling, given the limited funds that are already going to students in the Los Angeles Unified School District,” said Noelia Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Mayor Richard Riordan.

School board member David Tokofsky said it was not only a question of scale, but of propriety for a division that has cited staff reductions in its pleas for extra overtime pay.

“This is not what they’re supposed to be doing,” Tokofsky said. “This is the office that had $2 million of overtime. If they’ve got extra time to be doing this stuff, and then they’re billing the taxpayers $2 million of overtime, this is where I’ve got concerns.”

Tokofsky said the disclosure highlights the need for the district to establish an inspector general to determine what is “just petty politics, what is a violation of policy and what is criminal.”

The information about the party was distributed to board members under a cover letter signed by a district employee who has since denied writing it.

The package contains a memo soliciting members for three planning committees and minutes of four 9 a.m. meetings in district offices attended by as many as 15 employees.

Other memos suggest that the planning committee sought donations of up to $150 from the upper-tier managers to reduce the ticket price for other employees to $20.

The memo said it was a violation of board policy for an employee to seek charitable donations on school district property.

Sales said, however, that district legal counsel had concluded there was no illegal fund-raising.

“The activities that we’re most concerned about have to do with the amount of time that was taken to plan for this event,” he said.

The superintendent is “not averse to having Christmas celebrations, but he just wants to see they’re done with the minimal amount of time expended.”