Senate Investigator to Head District’s Anti-Fraud Unit

Hoping to stem the perception of widespread waste and fraud in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Board of Education on Tuesday named a U.S. Senate investigator to the new position of director of internal audit and special investigations.

Don L. Mullinax, 41, will supervise an audit branch that is being revamped to beef up its its anti-fraud role and increase its independence.

The appointment fills a vacancy left by the firing last summer of Wajeeh Ersheid, former director of internal audit, over charges of racial insensitivity.

Ersheid said his branch was understaffed, under qualified and overly subject to political influence.

Late last year, the board adopted a reorganization plan recommended by the outside consultant KPMG Peat Marwick to strengthen the audit branch.

The Peat Marwick report described the audit branch as being in the “paper and pencil” era and said it should be severed from the chain of command leading to the chief financial officer, whose oversight of operations under audit could pose a conflict of interest.

In a telephone interview, Mullinax said his top priorities will be to start a training program, develop computer investigative tools and conduct a risk assessment to determine resource needs.

For now, Mullinax’s appointment to the $103,917-a-year job, effective Jan. 19, appears to sideline a proposal by board member David Tokofsky to create an office of inspector general, similar to the fraud unit of the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

During eight years in Washington, Mullinax was chief investigator for two senators, director of contract investigations for the office of the inspector general of the District of Columbia, investigator for the Senate subcommittee on oversight of government management and audit manager for the U.S. Department of Defense.