Control of School Funds Found Lax

While a state audit released Tuesday found insufficient evidence to prove unfair retaliation against whistle-blowers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the investigators stumbled on another problem: inadequate control of a $6-million fund.

During a news conference, district officials expressed elation that they had been cleared--they used the word “exonerated”--of claims that whistle-blowers were falsely accused of child abuse.

But later in the day, state Auditor Kurt Sjoberg offered a clarification: While the charges of retaliation made by teachers and other employees could not be proved, nor could they be disproved.

That, he said, was why he recommended the district adopt uniform policies on when teachers accused of child abuse should be removed from the classroom.

The auditor’s review of 26 cases involving alleged sexual child abuse concluded that decisions about whether to remove the accused teachers were inconsistent, leaving the district vulnerable to the claims of retaliation.

“We did find that there had been inconsistent treatment in the policies of the district in some cases and it sometimes related to the individuals involved in the retaliation claims,” Sjoberg said. “We were left in this sort of gray area in the middle and to call that an exoneration is not a fair characterization of the report.”

The link between the retaliation against watchdogs and the financial control issues was made by a teacher accused--and later cleared--of sodomizing a special education student.

Teacher Dennis Dockstader had maintained that the charges were trumped up to punish him for pointing out flaws in district scrutiny of money spent through schools’ individual checking accounts.

Specifically, Dockstader had alleged that his school principal used about $500 from the account to buy items for herself, including premium ice cream and mystery novels.

Dockstader claims that he was allowed to teach students and take them on field trips for more than a week after the sodomy report was made, then pulled from the classroom the day after he reported the checking account problem to a district auditor.

Conversely, the audit said, the district did not remove a second-grade teacher who was accused in February of having female students sit on his lap with his pants unzipped.

On Tuesday, Dockstader said the audit results were bittersweet, since he took a stress-related disability leave three years ago rather than teach at another school and is waiting for a lawsuit against the district to come to trial.

“When you look at the audit overview, it’s very disappointing,” he said. “But when you get into the meat of the report, there’s vindication there.”

The state auditor did a random check of checking accounts at four schools in addition to Willenberg Special Education Center, where Dockstader had worked, and found improprieties ranging from lack of receipts for purchases to paying two teachers for the same purchase.

L.A. Unified officials said that even at a large campus, the balance in the funds is usually less than $2,000, but conceded that schools use them as a convenient way to buy things and then seek reimbursement from other funds.

District Chief Financial Officer Henry Jones estimated that $6 million passes through the accounts annually, yet he acknowledged that audits were conducted only every decade and that schools needed to provide only five years worth of receipts--giving them five years without any scrutiny.

“But you have to remember, that’s $6 million in a nearly $6-billion budget,” he said.

The state audit began in May after disgruntled employees caught the attention of Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith (R-Poway). He joined with Assemblyman Steve Baldwin (R-El Cajon) to lobby the state’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

Baldwin said he is considering legislation to improve the financial controls of the checking accounts.

At the morning news conference, district officials announced that they had already instituted a new accounting system based on preliminary results of the audit provided them several weeks ago.

Officials defended their practices on removing employees from classrooms, saying they must have the flexibility to evaluate each instance on its own merits.

“In the majority of cases, the individual is removed,” said superintendent’s spokesman Brad Sales. “But in some cases, when a quick-and-dirty evaluation suggests allegations are unfounded, we don’t take them out.”