Legislative Panel Orders Audit of School District

SACRAMENTO — After hearing allegations of funding misappropriations and retaliation against whistle-blowers, a state legislative committee ordered an audit Tuesday of the Los Angeles Unified School District to determine whether the law has been broken.

In a nearly unanimous vote, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee authorized a review of allegations that special education funds are being improperly used, and that those who report wrongdoing are subjected to such measures as transfers and false accusations of child abuse.

The decision was hailed as a vindication by several teachers and other school employees who had unsuccessfully pressed their grievances on the Los Angeles County district attorney, the state Department of Education and the state controller.

But by limiting the $36,000 audit to special education and retaliation, the committee excluded some of the dissidents’ well-publicized allegations, such as fabrication of enrollment numbers to gain state funding.

Assemblyman Steve Baldwin (R-El Cajon), who presented the request for an audit to the committee, said he narrowed its scope on the advice of the state controller’s office to ensure its approval.

Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith (R-Poway), another of the group’s backers, said he now intends to pressure the district attorney’s office to pursue a wider investigation.

“These things have been festering too long and they need to be properly investigated,” Goldsmith said. “We need a parallel investigation by the D.A.’s office. That’s their job.”

District spokesman Brad Sales said the district has investigated all the complaints and has disciplined some employees who were found responsible for minor wrongdoing. He said no evidence of retaliation against whistle-blowers was found.

In a brief hearing, Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), the committee’s chairman, allowed only three of half a dozen school district critics to speak.

Patrick Callahan, a former school psychologist, said he was transferred into an “isolation” job at administrative headquarters as a result of his complaints about failures in special education. He said he became physically and mentally disabled and eventually was terminated.

Sheila Hopper, a special education teacher, said she became the victim of a principal’s retaliation after reporting misappropriation of funds and failure to test and provide required services to students with learning disabilities.

Hopper charged that the principal took five students for rides in her Cadillac to induce them to give false testimony and gave students prepared statements to copy.

After police found no evidence to pursue a child abuse complaint lodged by the principal, the district conducted its own investigation and suspended Hopper for 15 days without pay, a penalty later reversed in arbitration.

In a subsequent civil lawsuit, a jury awarded Hopper $50,000 in general damages and $5,000 in punitive damages.

Hopper said the verdict was later overturned on technicalities, offering the district’s appeal as one more example of its refusal to accept responsibility.

Another speaker, Selena Tucker, said she was demoted and had her workweek cut from 40 hours to 20 in retaliation for her complaints that led to the discovery of fraud at an adult school program. She said she reported a teacher who was soliciting indigent patients at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center to sign papers indicating that they received instruction. Tucker said the classes consisted in some cases of films on health that some watched and others didn’t.

No speakers opposed the audit.

District spokesman Sales said the district’s general counsel sent a letter telling the committee it would cooperate fully with any inquiry.

“If they want to spend their money that way, that’s their prerogative,” he said. “We like whistle-blowers,” he said. “We have a whistle-blower hot line.”

Assemblyman Dick Floyd (D-Wilmington) was the only dissenter in the 11-1 vote. He criticized Baldwin and Goldsmith for meddling in local matters outside their districts, and said that incoming Los Angeles school Supt. Ruben Zacarias should be given the chance to set a new course for the district without the burden of an outside audit.