But officials did not immediately make those purchases.
Instead, the school system moved forward with two small districtwide programs. Tony Tortorici, the district's chief information officer, said $2.8 million was spent on a Scholastic reading program to help upper-grade teachers who were working with poor readers. In addition, he said the school system spent $3 million on an upcoming pilot program aimed at giving teachers an easier way to access students' standardized test scores and other academic measures.
In the meantime, the state's budget turned sour, which officials said is a problem because school districts must use their own money to buy products, then submit invoices for reimbursement, which can take 30 to 60 days. Tortorici said he brought up the Microsoft vouchers during budget deliberations with district Supt. David L. Brewer and his Cabinet last spring.
"The guidance we got is: Keep this on the back burner right now," Tortorici said. "Certainly if we were in a different kind of budget environment, it would be faster."
L.A. Unified's annual budget is about $6 billion.
The schools have six years to use the vouchers.
"We have the right at that point to designate some other beneficiary that would benefit the class indirectly," said Grossman, the plaintiffs' lawyer. "We could give it to libraries across the state, or something like that." He said he hoped it wouldn't come to that.
In addition, the district received a separate $3.1 million in technology vouchers from Microsoft. That money came from California government agencies' suit against Microsoft on the same monopoly grounds as the other consumer lawsuit. Grossman said L.A. Unified has also spent little of this money.
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evelyn.larrubia@latimes.com
