L.A. Unified Staff Costly, Increasing

Despite attempts to slim down, the city’s school system has more central-office staff than ever, and top administrators also cost more than in other large urban school districts, according to a state audit released Thursday. In addition, the Los Angeles Unified School District has fallen short on promised outreach to parents, analysts found.

District officials acknowledged some of the findings, but also asserted that their staffing levels and costs are justified.

The audit looked at the aftermath of two school district reorganization plans, one in 2000 and another 2004. Both were supposed to cut costs, but the 2000 plan also was touted as a landmark decentralization -- to make schools and administrators more local and responsive while also getting more resources to classrooms. The 2000 effort was a reform centerpiece of interim Supt. Ramon Cortines, who recently returned as top education advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

One intent “was to reduce the number of positions that don’t necessarily have contact with students,” said state Auditor Elaine M. Howle. “Although they did reduce many of those positions at a certain point in time, it was essentially temporary.”

In April 2000, the school board approved Cortines’ plan to cut 835 positions at the central office, shifting 501 staff members to local districts and schools. The 2004 reorganization also included cuts.

According to the audit: “By December 2005 support-services staffing had increased by 658 positions over December 1999 levels.”

Cortines’ successor, former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, opted for a centralized system to push new districtwide reading and math programs and to manage a $19.3-billion, bond-funded school construction program.

“The principal focus of my administration has been to improve instruction for each student and create one of the largest and most successful school-building programs in the nation,” Romer said in a statement Thursday. The bottom line, he said, is academic progress, not fidelity to any particular plan.

Student test scores have improved but they still trail the state average.

The audit acknowledges these gains, but in an interview Howle added: “If you don’t establish ways to track the impact of various changes, you’re not going to be able to evaluate how successful you were or whether you need to make adjustments to get to the goal you want to achieve.”

Regarding executive pay, the audit noted that district “salaries are higher than those of comparable positions for more than half of the 27 high-level positions surveyed, but there may be factors that justify such differences.”

Romer himself is a relative bargain. His salary of $256,250 comes in below the school chiefs of the San Diego, Houston and Miami-Dade school systems.

L.A. Unified’s top five positions pay salaries of more than $200,000 a year. They are: Kevin Reed, general counsel, at $234,091; Dan Isaacs, chief operating officer, at $220,375; Guy Mehula, chief facilities officer, at $214,999; and Maribel Medina, special counsel to the school board, at $209,714.

Auditors said L.A. Unified had improved its methods for setting salaries but needed to do better. On this finding, the district agreed.

Cortines has been at pains to praise the progress under Romer, but the call for decentralization has become a mantra of the teachers union, which joined with the mayor to push a schools bill through the Legislature. The bill, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will sign, would give Villaraigosa substantial authority over the school system. It also calls for greater teacher input into school curriculum decisions, among other provisions.

“Local control is what we want and we’re going to get it,” said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles in a recent interview.

He predicted that the Villaraigosa-backed reforms would save about $450 million a year from an annual $8.4-billion budget.

The audit is silent on future cost cutting, and Howle allowed that some of the district justifications have merit.

Auditors also looked at the parent advisory committees that the Cortines plan promised for each of 11 regional district offices. Under pressure from the teachers union, L.A. Unified has since been cut back to eight regional offices.

“Only four of the eight had active councils and only two appeared to be proactive in terms of meeting with parents and providing help and information,” Howle said. “That was disappointing.”

The district responded by listing future plans for parent involvement as well as already established parent centers and committees. Officials also promised “an in-depth, self review” of parent involvement, including what happened to the missing advisory committees.

“Quite frankly, they should already be aware of what’s happening to these councils,” Howle said.

The audit was initiated a year ago at the request of Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez (D-San Fernando).

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howard.blume@latimes.com