Cracked, Broken, and Mute: How LAUSD Wastes Money

Yesterday’s LA Times reported the following from our globe-trotting, glad-handing, tv-anchor-bopping mayor (this isn’t TMZ but, btw, who was that cute lady beside him gazing adoringly at him on yesterday’s news reports?):

At Liechty, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa led a forum Monday with teachers and parents, stressing the need for “shared sacrifice” and “creative solutions” to save LAUSD jobs and preserve campus reform efforts.

Echoing austerity measures he’s proposed for the city, Villaraigosa noted that the district could save $65 million and about 1,100 school jobs if employees gave up automatic salary increases that are tied to years of experience and additional education. And an across-the-board 3% salary reduction could preserve an additional 2,280 campus positions, he said.

Now here’s a CBS 2 News headline from two weeks ago:

Audit: LAUSD Could Have Saved $77M In 2006-2007

Inspector General Jerry Thornton’s Audit Showed L.A. Schools Consultants Were Too Costly

Echoed by The Daily News:

According to district sources, the audit found that $186 million was paid to 1,277 outside consultants in 2006-07, averaging $145,653 per person that year. The audit’s findings mirrored an earlier analysis by the Daily News that found the district spent $182 million on 849 consultants - about $215,000 each - in the 2007-08 year.

ANY CHANCE WE COULD ASK THESE CONSULTANTS TO SACRIFICE A LITTLE??????

Talk about waste, waste, waste!

Here’s my personal perspective on how well these highly paid consultants did their jobs.  In 2006-07, our school got new heating and air-conditioning as well as new asphalt.  In 2007-08 we got phones in the classroom that let us call the main office, the nurse, and each other’s rooms (though not outside the school).

It is now 2009.  My phone goes mute on a daily basis.  The asphalt is cracked and bumpy.  The heating and ac are broken.

When the the repairman came last month to look at the heating/ac unit, he said, “These units break all the time.   Just use the old unit that’s been in the building since it was built fifty years ago.”

I said, “But it smells like sulphur when we turn it on.”

He said, “That’s OK.  It’ll burn off after a while.”

I said, “But it’s a roomful of children!”

He said, “They’ll get used to it.  At least they’ll be warm.”

What do they sacrifice: warmth or stinklessness?

What would you choose for your kids?

Wanna know how much LAUSD wasted on that whole new hvac system?

$250 million.

Why is it for teachers and kids to make all the sacrifices?

Didn’t consultants and bureaucrats and mayors learn about sharing?

Maybe they need to come back to elementary school.

We could teach them a thing or two.

P.S. KCET ran a great little piece exposing the flawed logic of LAUSD’s massive construction program.  Watch Blackboard Bungle, Episode 128 of Socal Connected, here.

Share on Facebook