LAUSD lost almost $10 million due to inefficient inventory system, audit finds
The report says thousands of textbooks are not bar-coded or returned by students and poor communication between schools has led to unnecessary purchases.
An audit of textbooks at 21 local high schools has found that lost books and excessive purchases at these campuses cost the Los Angeles Unified School District nearly $10 million.
Such problems are pervasive across the system of more than 1,000 schools, auditors concluded, exponentially increasing the potential losses and unnecessary spending.
"The district does not manage or control the textbook inventory process effectively, efficiently or economically," auditors wrote in a June 30 report, which is posted online.
Textbooks represent a huge annual cost for the nation's second-largest school district: $83.3 million last year for texts in required academic courses. Among a sample of reviewed titles, the cost of each book averaged $109.31.
Fremont High's grand experiment begins
The L.A. Unified campus reopens with a mostly new staff as the district attempts to address the campus' historically dismal academic results. But the approach has its critics.
Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
A revamped Fremont High, which opened its school year Tuesday with a majority of new teachers, has become a local test case for a controversial school makeover approach being tried around the country.
Last December, Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines announced that he would personally oversee sweeping reforms at Fremont. The most striking was his edict that all staff members — including teachers, counselors, custodians and cafeteria workers — had to reapply for their jobs at the persistently low-performing South Los Angeles campus.