Schools Chief Is Investigated

Compton’s new schools superintendent is being investigated by state and local prosecutors in New Mexico for bonuses and benefits he received as the top education official in the city of Las Cruces.

Jesse Gonzales retired from the Las Cruces superintendency last year to accept the job as Compton’s first locally appointed superintendent since 1993. State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, citing Gonzales’ strong record in New Mexico, restored full authority to Compton’s school board after an eight-year state takeover, the longest in California history.

But in November, the civil division of the New Mexico attorney general’s office disclosed that it had opened an investigation into whether $390,000 in various incentives for Gonzales were legally approved by the Las Cruces school board. On Wednesday, Susan Riedel, chief deputy district attorney in Las Cruces, said her office had launched a criminal investigation into the matter. She declined to comment further.

Central to the probes are $56,271 in retirement benefits and a $55,000 bonus given to Gonzales during his 12-year tenure as superintendent. Also, he got, among other things, three life insurance policies for which the district paid more than $200,000. He received them, board members and an attorney for Gonzales say, as inducements to stay in Las Cruces.

Board minutes show no record of the payments. Critics say they were approved in secret.

The Las Cruces board has recently acknowledged this error in disclosure and demanded that Gonzales repay all the money it spent.

“I think he used the board,” said Earl Nissen, a university teacher who is leading an effort to recall board members who approved the payments. “Dr. Gonzales is an opportunist.”

Gonzales refuses to reimburse the district. In a nine-page letter released through his lawyer, Gonzales notes that it was the board, not he, who approved the benefits and inducements. As a result, before the Compton post, he turned down better-paying jobs in Florida, Texas and Colorado to stay in Las Cruces.

Allies of Gonzales dismiss the investigations as a product of his strained relations with the local teachers union. A Las Cruces school board member who is the father of the union chief requested the state investigation.

Though Gonzales regrets the board’s “technical noncompliance” with open-meetings laws, “the actions of the board were the product of its recognition of Dr. Gonzales’ excellent performance,” Gonzales’ lawyer, Leonard J. Piazza, said in a letter.

But the episode has soured views of Gonzales in Las Cruces. He was an area native who was credited with rising test scores, lower dropout rates and new construction. The Las Cruces Sun-News, long friendly to him, said in an editorial recently: “Gonzales has done a lot of harm to this community, which so nourished him. He owes it not only to pay the money back, he owes it to come clean.”