School Wrongly Received State Funds, Audit Finds

Los Angeles Mission College improperly received $5.73 million in state funds over three years by reporting inflated enrollment figures for two noncredit computer courses, state Controller Steve Westly said Friday.

An audit by the controller’s office determined that several thousand students who simply used computers in a campus lab were automatically enrolled in a vocational course titled “Computer Technology in the Workplace.”

Many students apparently did not even know they had been put on the class rolls, according to the audit.

In the fall 2001 semester, auditors said, the community college in Sylmar reported an impossible number of students were in the class: Their reported work hours were four times the level the lab could possibly accommodate given the number of computers available and the facility’s schedule.

Auditors also found that the course did not have a qualified instructor or an adequate syllabus.

In addition, auditors concluded that top Mission College administrators were long aware of the situation but did not investigate it. The controller’s audit was requested by state Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) in November after a whistle-blower provided her with documents about the inflated enrollment.

“Given the high volume of [students] being reported under a course that, in all practicality did not exist, it would be difficult for the LAMC [Mission College] administrators to be totally ignorant of the situation,” the audit states. “Some of the staff interviewed, who requested that their identity be kept confidential, told the auditors that the situation is well known throughout the campus.”

However, the report did not level any accusations of fraud, and some state officials said they did not expect the 7,000-student college or the Los Angeles Community College District would be forced to pay the money back. The college receives nearly $30 million annually in state revenue and grants, campus officials said.

Although many more individual students were involved, the equivalent of 4,135 full-time students was wrongly reported to be enrolled in the courses over the three years, the audit said.

The audit said the enrollment matter was raised at a campus meeting last March attended by Mission College President Adriana D. Barrera. Auditors found that “rather than looking into the matter,” however, the school’s vice president of academic affairs, William Farmer, issued a memo in August to the entire faculty about additional computers and encouraged instructors to assign students work on them.

That student work would, in turn, enable the campus to report higher enrollment figures and provide for more state funding, according to the audit.

Barrera said in an interview Friday that she had not known about the enrollment-reporting problems before that March meeting. In addition, Barrera said she thought that by that spring term the school was no longer reporting inflated enrollment for the computer labs. As a result, Barrera said, she did not think there was anything wrong with Farmer’s August memo. In addition, she said Mission College was acting properly in encouraging students -- including many from low-income families who do not own computers -- to use new computers acquired by the school.

In addition, she said the school has taken steps, including purchasing software to monitor use of campus computers, to prevent the problem in the future.

Her boss, Chancellor Peter J. Landsberger of the Los Angeles Community College District, said he did not expect to take disciplinary action against any Mission College officials. “I don’t see any individual culpability. There certainly wasn’t any intentional wrongdoing we’re aware of,” he said.

Landsberger added that he was confident that neither his district nor the college would suffer any financial penalty for the inflated enrollment figures from July 2001 through June 2004. He said that’s because the district already receives no enrollment money for many legitimately enrolled students because of a state funding cap. Even after the inflated enrollment at Mission is subtracted from the school’s total, the district still will have enrollment that exceeds the state cap, he said.

However, Laura Adleman, a spokeswoman for the state controller’s office, said Friday it would be up to the state Department of Finance to decide whether the nine-campus Los Angeles college system should be required to reimburse the state.

Although the audit shows that some college officials knew there were problems with the way the courses operated, she said, “Our report was not a fraud investigation and we did not find fraud.”

On Friday, Speier issued a statement that the audit “is the product of the courage of someone at Los Angeles Mission College who believed the manner in which the college was claiming state funds was inappropriate. This whistle-blower can’t stand up and be counted for fear of job loss. But I applaud this person.”

Speier has introduced reform legislation that would tighten such enrollment-reporting practices in the future, requiring random audits of class attendance.

Richard Steffen, Speier’s staff director, said in an interview that the senator does not want the school forced to pay back the funds.

“We wouldn’t want to hurt the students,” he said. “This is not a pay-it-back kind of thing.”