Plan to Curb Power of L.A. Schools Inspector Draws Fire

A proposal to revoke some powers of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s chief investigator is causing an uproar among school board members and in Sacramento, where a bill to extend the inspector general’s authority is pending.

The Board of Education is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a proposal that seeks to amend Senate Bill 1360--sponsored by state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles)--by adding clauses that would limit some of the independent powers of Inspector General Don Mullinax.

Specifically, the amendments submitted to the board by district Supt. Roy Romer would bar Mullinax from initiating investigations without the approval of a majority of the seven-member board, prevent him from releasing reports and findings to anyone except the board or the superintendent, and keep all parts of investigations confidential.

The proposal was prepared by Fabian Nunez, the district’s new director of government affairs but offers no reasons for seeking the changes. Nunez, Romer and Mullinax could not be reached for comment.

Critics say that the changes are an attempt to hamstring a hard-charging investigator who has aggressively pursued waste and played a crucial role in exposing environmental hazards involving the aborted $200-million Belmont Learning Complex project.

There was some speculation among district officials that the impetus came not from Romer or Nunez but from within the board. These sources say that there was unhappiness with Mullinax’s handling of the Belmont audit. Some state officials say that the district is concerned that it could be held liable for information released by Mullinax if it turned out to be inaccurate.

Mullinax, in a terse memo to Nunez, said he “strongly opposed” the proposal and said it could be perceived as an attempt to “muzzle” the office of inspector general and limit its independence.

“The ability to release reports directly from the OIG to outside investigatory and judicial agencies without the filtering of the superintendent, district staff or the board is a cornerstone of the independence of the OIG,” he wrote in the memo July 20.

Mullinax added that if the matter could not be resolved before the board meeting, he would attend and speak in opposition.

The Hayden bill would extend Mullinax’s generally broad authority to conduct investigations and subpoena witnesses and documents to January 2005. The bill also requires the inspector general to submit interim reports to the Legislature. It passed the Senate and the Assembly education committee and is now before the full Assembly. The Los Angeles school board is on record supporting it.

Hayden said he was baffled by this late attempt to revisit the issue and said the school district seemed bent on destroying the office of the inspector general.

“I have not spoken to [Mullinax], but this is the kind of thing an inspector general quits over,” said Hayden. “It certainly would change his role to that of internal advisor at best and compel him to give advice in confidence.”

Hayden also said the proposed amendments represented a retreat from reform efforts that swept a new school board majority into office a year ago.

“Even if we’re in a new era of reform, the inspector general mechanism is truly needed by taxpayers and whistle-blowers,” he said. “They’ve got a $7- or $8-billion budget and whole divisions that have never been audited. To weaken his role would be like removing cops from streets and assuming that everybody would be law-abiding. And what if investigations lead to the top? This proposal allows the board and the superintendent to control what’s being investigated and uncovered. I can’t urge them strongly enough to reject it.”

Board member David Tokofsky said he too would oppose the proposal.

“The office of inspector general has to do with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse and checking cronyism and nepotism in the district . . . that is what this proposal may weaken,” he said.

However, school board member Caprice Young cautioned against reading too much into the proposal.

“I’m hoping to talk to Mr. Mullinax and Mr. Nunez before the board meeting because I need clarification as to what the intent is,” said Young, who is chief of the audit committee. “The inspector general has been an integral part of our reform effort and it would be unlikely that the board would take any action to impede his independence.”