Proposed LAUSD Bond Measure

Re “L.A. Schools to Poll Public on Bond,” March 5:

I can’t understand why four members of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education want to spend $3.2 million on a LAUSD bond campaign. Other school districts turn to their business communities for private campaign funds. Good schools mean a better local economy. But LAUSD, the district without sufficient funds for textbooks, supplies, clean campuses and one that not only hasn’t given employees a raise in five years but also cut employees’ pay, can spend $3.2 million on a campaign that may or may not be winnable.

In order to find out the extent of schools’ maintenance needs, LAUSD wanted first to take 38 principals and teachers out of schools to plan how to take inventory districtwide. That idea was so ludicrous, it was changed to hiring retired people to do the job. Did no one ever think to ask principals to list what their schools’ needs are and put a cost on them?

The majority of the board members obviously think that spending millions of tax dollars on the impossible school bond dream is better than granting the individual requests for specific services that have been rejected. This is one more example of the need for the California Education Efficiency Initiative, which would put 95 cents of every education dollar at school sites and limit the centralized expenditures to only five cents of every dollar.

At a time when every education dollar is needed for real things like repairs, computers, or even bullet-proof glass, a bond campaign is a misuse of tax dollars. It’s time to sign petitions for 95/5.

HELEN BERNSTEIN

President

United Teachers Los Angeles