It’s high time to be paying closer attention to the $14.7b (p. 31) of taxpayer’s money that Covid19 has left in essentially the sole charge of our LAUSD Superintendent, Austin Beutner.
On March 10, 2020 under Covid19, the LAUSD’s publicly elected school board signed over sweeping authority for fiscal and management decisions to Superintendent Beutner, a former investment banker who remarks that the “guiding principle in my career, … is to put myself in uncomfortable positions and take risks.”
The emergency powers relinquished the board’s fiduciary responsibility to stakeholders regarding oversight and regulation, policy and budget, with no sunset date attached. The breathtaking subrogation was to a Superintendent appointed by a former board, chaired at the time by a member charged with and subsequently convicted of felony campaign misconduct, indebted to a different, neoliberal and privatizing ideology of public education.
At next Tuesday’s LAUSD board meeting some more fallout from this power shift will become evident. To date a tremendous amount of emergency spending has been brought to the board as simply courtesy, for ratification rather than actual approval. And the circumstances of this spending is fraught; criticism – even questioning – is awkward at best, difficult in practice. Feeding the hungry during this health and economic emergency is crucial; keeping our community safe is vital. But what happens in the long CONTINUE READING: Board Has Wall Street Wolves Guarding LAUSD Henhouse – Los Angeles Education Examiner