BUREAUCRACY WATCH : So Sorry, Too Busy

The Los Angeles Unified School District, in a stunning act of philanthropy, may soon hand back to the state millions of dollars in unspent school renovation money.

What explains this generosity on the part of a district saddled by penury, staggering under unmet educational needs and given to frequent public proclamations of fiscal woe? What accounts for it--explains is too benevolent a word--are those familiar twins, bureaucratic rigidity and administrative inertia.

The renovation money, amounting to more than $12 million, was made available under a school construction and modernization bond issue that passed last year.

More than 50 schools in the district are in line for upgrading through the program; eight are most immediately affected under the program’s one-year, use-it-or-lose-it requirement.

Think that’s bad? Last year, the district had to return about $18 million because it couldn’t meet the spending deadline.

The district says that the priority it is giving to planning for new classrooms and modernizing year-round schools has left it without the staff to oversee state-funded renovation projects, even those that include repairs related directly to vital safety needs.

In many cases, though, the priority projects are still years away. The renovation needs are now, and the money is in hand. But not for long, if the district doesn’t quickly get its act together.

The school board expects to take up the renovation issue again on Thursday. This time, maybe, it will get its bureaucratic priorities in order.