School Board Adopts $8.9-Billion Budget but Can’t Meet All Needs

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday adopted an $8.9-billion budget that beefs up spending on textbooks, bathrooms and janitors, but fails to provide new funds for some chronic weak spots.

The 2000-01 budget--about $12,500 per student--contains an increase of about $39 million for administration, said chief financial officer Joe Zeronian. He acknowledged that this year’s reorganization into 11 mini-districts--once billed as a cost-saver--has actually made the bureaucracy more expensive.

Zeronian said nearly half of that increase is a one-time expense for the cost of setting up offices and moving employees.

In most cases, the spending increases represent an incremental approach to solving some of the most intractable problems of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The $10.6 million set aside for bathroom renovations, for example, won’t be enough to fix dilapidated and damaged facilities on all 660 campuses this year.

“But it’s a step in the right direction,” Zeronian said.

The budget omits a $5-million proposal to post attendants at high school and middle school bathrooms. A pilot project that stationed full-time monitors at 10 South Gate schools last year was widely credited with producing clean facilities and reducing vandalism.

Supt. Roy Romer told the board that many important needs are going unmet and cited the shortage of school counselors and the long waiting lists for seats at magnet schools.

“These are limits,” Romer said. “But the balance is one I support.”

The final budget does not include a proposal to spend $1.6 million to hire more middle school counselors. There are now 500 to 600 students per counselor at middle schools, a ratio Zeronian considers high.

The district’s thinly stretched nursing staff also got no additional funds.

The new budget is about 13.9% more than last year’s. The district’s enrollment of 711,000 last year will grow, but the new count has not yet been made.

After covering cost-of-living increases, the budget provides about $470 million in new revenues.

Zeronian said the budget designates about $155 million of the new money to expand programs and develop new ones.

Most of the remainder is available for employee salaries, Zeronian said. The district is now in contract negotiations with its employee unions.

However, teachers union President Day Higuchi told the board that it didn’t leave enough for salaries and asked it to set aside $225 million more for pay increases.

Each 1% increase in teacher pay will cost the district about $20 million. The teachers initially requested a pay increase of 21%.

Among other increases in the new budget are:

* $30 million for textbooks in addition to the funds provided directly by the state.

* $23 million above the $70 million spent last year to provide intensive academic instruction for students who have failed or are in danger of failing the second and eighth grades. Students who were retained will be placed in classes of no more than 10.

* $5 million for janitors. It would partly restore cuts in janitorial staff made during the recession of the early 1990s.