The projected cost to fix it, 210 million dollars and they're not sure it will work then. So what does the district have to say?
From the L.A. Times Opinion:
LAUSD's unending payroll problem
The district's chief operating officer hopes, but can't promise, that it's fixed.
November 14, 2007
Confronted recently about L.A. Unified's exasperating payroll scandal, the district's chief operating officer acknowledged that, after nearly a year, he still can't promise that the problem is solved. "We have," he said, as if this would reassure, "a higher degree of confidence than ever before that we are accurate." That's an answer unworthy of a student, much less a leader. So, Supt. Brewer, yes, we expect more. But you have our sympathies as well.
Of course being they are going slightly over budget in a district that is scrounging for money to teach our children, they hire a PR firm for a couple of hundred thou to try to put a palatable spin on this debacle.
This comes right on the heels of the fraud they uncovered by administrators in procurement card purchases:
Follow-Up: LAUSD Credit Card Paper Trail
by David Goldstein
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― This report is a follow-up to David Goldstein's riveting report from last week in which he exposed a myriad of abuses of procurement cards being used by LAUSD officials...including a $500 coffee maker.
"Did you have any idea they were spending upwards of $5 million a month on procurement cards?"
No, no!
Teachers Union President A.J. Duffy had no idea.
The necessary items to instruct the kids:
$995 for a mattress. Another $995 for a company that produces video games. $995 for flowers. We found charges for fishing tackle...stuffed animals...purchases at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Smart & Final and Trader Joes...Linens and Things. Millions and millions of dollars in charges.
I don't live "in" L.A., so it's not my property taxes paying for this FUBAR entity, but as long as I live on SoCal, I'm going to have to deal with whatever they manage to spit out after high school.
My animosity towards LAUSD goes back to when I did live and work in downtown L.A.
When I first started working in the "Old Los Angeles Oil Field", I was single and not making much. I rented a house from one of our customers in the middle of the barrio. About two blocks away (I could sit in my kitchen and the football games) was Belmont High School. This was a school built in 1923 for 500 students, today the student population is 5200. Think things might have been a little tight there?
To alleviate the overcrowding, the LAUSD bought out a shitload of houses, torn 'em down and started construction on the Belmont Learning Center. When about 60% complete, someone noticed the oil wells in the area (this would include the four the LAUSD owned plus another well they had to buy and re-drill to relocate). The project ground to a stop.
It wasn't safe for the chiilldreen!!
This was BS for many reasons. One being that they had put a vapor barrier and venting system under the school...and half the kids that would attend lived right there in the middle of the fracking oil field in houses that were built in the '30's and '40's. Doubt they considered any oil field gases back then. The kids would have been safer in school than in their own home.
As far as that newly discovered earthquake fault that runs under it, if you're right over it or 1/2 mile away...
Oh yeah, they've started work on the Learning Center again, it's just been 10 wasted years.
One major disappointment during the Belmont Learning Center fiasco was that I kept being called in by the state for my "expert" opinion on the status of the oil filed and the activist that was bitching about the whole thing was, you guessed already I bet, a Hollywierd celebratty. She could take what I said and twist it just a bit so that it sounded like I had said the complete opposite. When I'd insist that wasn't what I said, she'd insist that, yes, that's what I meant.
Ahh, well. She did play a Dr. on T.V.
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