Facing a possible investigation by the state, officials at the Val Verde Unified School District in Riverside County on Tuesday said they were within bounds when they used state bond money to build 5,000-square-foot weight rooms, stainless steel whirlpools in locker rooms and other accouterments even though the district declared it was a hardship case.
Supt. C. Fred Workman said those facilities were essential to help Val Verde's students achieve and that "black and brown" students in the district deserve to have the same advantages as students in wealthier school districts in neighboring Temecula and Murrieta.
"They have all these things in other school districts," Workman said. "They were essential in many ways to us to have an adequate program."
Workman said the district had become a victim in the debate over the adequacy of state funding for new schools and that he feared state officials would try to make an example of the district.
"The bureaucracy is furiously trying to defend itself from a very embarrassing situation," Workman said. "They are telling people they are paying for 100% of a school, or 50% of a school, when they are paying for 30% or 70%."
Officials at the state Office of Public School Construction are examining the school district's accounting procedures and trying to determine if the district should lose as much as $90 million in state aid on future construction projects. The inquiry is focused on a series of special bonds the Val Verde district board issued to cover "cost overruns" on construction projects.
At the same time, officials at the Riverside County Office of Education, which oversees the district, warned the 19,000-student Val Verde district that its "long-term financial solvency" could be at risk because the district now has $136.5 million in outstanding debt.
At issue with the state is the fact that the district's school board was approving millions of dollars in school construction bonds while, at the same time, it received hundreds of millions of dollars in special state assistance for districts in financial hardship.
Since 1999, the Val Verde district qualified as a "hardship" school district, meaning that it has declared it does not have the revenue or debt capacity to pay its required 50% share of new school planning and construction costs. As a result, the state has paid 100% of the cost of building most of the district's new schools.
