District Meets Deadline for School Money

In a major turnaround from its past failings, the Los Angeles Unified School District met a crucial deadline by staking a claim for up to $450 million in state bond money for building more than two dozen new schools.

For years, the district had lost funds to other school systems because it was slow in sending in applications for construction projects to the state. Critics said the nation’s second-largest school system remained too lumbering and inefficient to complete the groundwork for new projects on time.

Some skeptics were betting that the district would never complete the paperwork, land acquisition, architectural designs and environmental reviews by the deadline last week, even with the extra time allowed for big, urban districts under a court order. “They thought it was hilarious,” said Constance L. Rice, a Los Angeles civil rights lawyer who filed the lawsuit that resulted in that order two years ago.

The state set aside $750 million after a Superior Court judge ruled that it was distributing too much of the 1998 bond money to districts that are not severely crowded. A priority system was created to help L.A. Unified claim as much as $450 million for applications submitted by a June 26 deadline. Over the last year and a half, the state distributed the other $300 million in installments, and Los Angeles schools qualified for $250 million of that.

After the court ruling, even the district’s own officials hesitated to predict how much they might get.

But a revamped facilities team not only beat the deadline, it pumped out applications for $916 million, far more than is currently available. Even if state officials kick back some applications for more work, Los Angeles school leaders say they are confident that they will qualify for all $450 million. Other needy districts, however, could take some of that money away under the state formula for funding. Any projects not funded in this round will get in line for funding by a $13-billion bond on the November ballot.

In the last three months alone, the district produced plans for 29 new schools or school expansions, including several that were not scheduled to be ready until as late as November.

They include four high schools and two middle schools in the east San Fernando Valley, one high school each in South-Central Los Angeles and the Southeast area and three high schools, two middle schools and four elementary schools in the central area.

The strong finish surprised the district’s critics.

“I thought they would be able to come in with $200 million to $250 million in applications,” said Jim Murdoch, executive director of the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, which represents hundreds of other school districts in California. The organization opposed the use of a priority system, saying it would unfairly penalize other districts that had been more efficient in applying for state money.

But he applauded the district’s success.

“We think it’s great if the district has been able to move forward,” Murdoch said. “Clearly there is a great need for schools in L.A.. The kids have been going without for too long.”

Those who had fought to secure the money for Los Angeles were ecstatic, but still guarded last week about the potential pitfalls ahead in building so many campuses at the same time.

Supt. Roy Romer feted his facilities team Wednesday with a lunch in the courtyard of district headquarters. He hailed them as a “remarkable team” that is only at the beginning of a long race.

“In the first leg of it, you are way ahead of the clock,” Romer said.

Rice said it is no time to be giddy. “There are still serious problems.”

The hurdles ahead include completing environmental clearances, hiring contractors and keeping dozens of projects on schedule and on budget during construction. The projects submitted so far represent less than a third of the program to build 80 new schools and expand dozens of others. The majority of those projects will depend on the approval of two bond measures in November, the statewide bond and a $3.3-billion Los Angeles bond.

Rice’s law firm, English, Munger & Rice, filed the March 2000 lawsuit that challenged the state’s past practice of distributing school construction and modernization money on the basis of the order in which districts turned in applications, with no consideration of need.

It argued that students in large urban districts suffer academically because of crowding and multitrack schedules and that the state rules put those districts at a disadvantage in the competition for funds. Suburban and rural districts can get their applications in more quickly, the lawsuit contended, because of the availability of vacant land in those areas. Large urban districts, with few open properties, face unusual delays in condemning occupied land or cleaning up vacant industrial sites.

Even while advocating for the district in court, Rice had been highly critical of district facilities staff for compounding the delays and mismanaging the 1997 local bond and not applying for state money fast enough.

“They were running a circus here five years ago,” Rice said. “They started rolling out and spending money with no system in place.”

Rice, who was appointed in February 2001 to the citizen committee that oversees spending of the local bond, said she has seen a “sea change” in the district’s facilities staff.

The district has established credible plans and budgets for modernization and new schools and has built the computer systems needed to keep projects on track, she said.

“They have the professional capacity to carry this to the next step,” Rice said. “Eighteen months ago I wouldn’t have said they did.”

Kathi Littmann, head of new school construction for the district, said the success in qualifying for the funds also depended on smooth handling of paperwork by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control and Division of the State Architect. Both agencies added the staff necessary to handle the high volume of work coming from Los Angeles, Littmann said.

The Board of Education did its part, too, by approving all 43 authorizations for eminent domain that the staff has so far requested, Littmann said.

Outward signs of the school building program are still scanty, but that will soon change, Littmann said. The district has completed three new primary centers and one campus expansion in the last two years and has seven other projects under construction. More than 60 projects, including 16 new schools, are on schedule to begin construction this year.

“By the end of September, things are going to be pretty harried,” Littmann said.