Members of the panel that parcels out state funds for school construction grilled top officials of a Perris school district Wednesday about its mounting debt and questionable spending decisions, but delayed for a month a decision that could deliver a major financial blow to the district.
The State Allocation Board is considering withholding $89 million in construction funding because the Val Verde Unified School District borrowed that amount by issuing special, non-voter-approved debt to supplement what it was getting from the state. State officials say that borrowed money should have been used on past and future projects instead of state money.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday May 26, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 71 words Type of Material: Correction
Val Verde schools: An article in Thursday's California section about an appearance by Val Verde Unified School District officials at a state board meeting in Sacramento misquoted Supt. C. Fred Workman. Workman was quoted in some editions as saying that because the district would return borrowed money for school construction overruns, "all we will have left is what we can bleed from the state of California." Workman said "glean," not "bleed."
The district, which has received $350 million from the state for building projects since 1999, argued that the funds in question were needed to cover "cost overruns" on new schools because state funding grants are "absolutely, positively inadequate," Supt. C. Fred Workman told the board Wednesday.
Officials at the state's Office of Public School Construction say the cost overruns largely stem from the district's decisions to spend state bond money on luxury items such as elaborate football stadiums, stainless steel locker room whirlpools and 5,000-square-foot weight rooms.
Val Verde has to operate under special rules because it has been classified since 1999 as a "hardship" school district by the state, meaning that it has declared it does not have the revenue or debt capacity to pay its 50% share of new school planning and construction costs, as other districts must.
As a hardship district, it gets from the state up to 100% of the costs for building schools, but the state restricts how the money can be used. The state also may scale back its funding if a district raises money by issuing new debt or bonds not approved by voters, as Val Verde has done.
"We are totally now at the mercy of the state, God forbid," Workman told the board, after explaining that as a result of the controversy, the district was going to return $50 million of outside funds it borrowed to cover overruns on the district's next high school, middle school and elementary school. "All we will have left is what we can bleed from the state of California."
State board member Kathleen Moore was sympathetic to the district's struggles and said she was troubled when she recently had to approve the plans of another hardship school district that had enough state funds under the guidelines to build only a school with classrooms alone.
