COMPTON : School Board to Seek Emergency State Loan

School board members have voted to seek an emergency state loan to ease a financial crisis that has left the Compton Unified School District unable to meet its May and June payroll. County analysts have estimated that the Compton school system will need to borrow as much as $18.4 million to stay afloat for the next 18 months.

If a bailout of that size is approved, then state education officials must, by law, appoint an administrator to run the school system for one to 10 years.

Analysts said the district’s financial health has suffered from faulty accounting and overspending for at least three years. The school district business office, for example, estimated that the district ended the last fiscal year with $4.1 million in reserves. According to recent audit figures, the district was actually about $1 million in debt at the time. The district will spend $8.2 million more than it received this year. Last year, the district’s deficit spending was $2.8 million.

The district will hold a public hearing on its loan application next week.