Senator to Again Seek College District Audit

Saying local and state officials misled him last year about the fiscal health of the Los Angeles Community College District, state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) called Tuesday for a state audit of the struggling system.

Polanco plans to make an official request for the audit this morning at a meeting of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee in Sacramento.

Polanco, the Senate Democratic leader, withdrew a similar audit request last year.

Polanco said he did so after the district’s then-chancellor, Bill Segura, and state community college officials assured him they “were actively working on addressing the fiscal problems of the district.”

In light of those assurance, Polanco said he was shocked at recent developments.

“Next thing you know, the chancellor quits, we find the district is $13 million in the hole and some colleges have cut more than a quarter of their classes for lack of money,” Polanco said. “And now the district board is asking employees for salary ‘give-backs.’ ”

The worsening financial picture for the nine-campus Los Angeles district--the nation’s largest--coincided with an almost 10% increase in state funding for the current fiscal year, Polanco said.

“What is needed is a clear accounting of the situation from state auditors,” Polanco said. “We need a clear, unbiased view of the district’s fiscal and management status before the situation worsens.”

Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), the Audit Committee chairman, said he also is worried about the district’s financial difficulties, but will wait for Wednesday’s discussion before deciding how to vote.

Los Angeles district officials are not keen on Polanco’s proposal.

Board of trustees member Kelly G. Candaele said the district needs the state’s support, not criticism.

“Right now the best thing our delegation could do is help us,” Candaele said. “We need our delegation to get together . . . rather than have legislators sitting up there with an authoritarian attitude toward the district.”

James Heinselman, the Los Angeles district’s acting chancellor, said he opposes the state audit because the district is already reporting to the state chancellor’s office on its fiscal predicament.

“We can be running at cross purposes and have kind of a fiasco,” Heinselman said.

But Polanco said Monday the district has the wrong attitude about an audit.

“I think we’re going to enhance their efforts [by] providing them some much-needed analysis . . . to bring remedy to a system that is a real embarrassment,” Polanco said.

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The latest chapter in the district’s fiscal woes opened in January when a routine district audit identified a probable shortfall.

Although that audit predicted about a $1-million deficit, it was soon discovered that the shortfall was $13.1 million. By that time, the state community college chancellor’s office had already moved the L.A. system from level three to a more serious level two on its “watch list” of troubled districts.

If not addressed, such a shortfall would almost certainly lead state Chancellor Thomas Nussbaum to place the district in level one--a kind of “red alert” that would likely prompt the state to send in a monitor.

Nussbaum complained in a recent interview that state law prevents him from helping districts until they are in such peril it may be too late to save them.

In 1995, Polanco proposed legislation that would have established an early-warning system to alert state community college officials of districts’ financial problems.

It was opposed by community college officials, “who convinced me they had proper checks and balances in place,” Polanco said, adding: “I believed them.”