LAUSD: Roy Romer’s Secret Slush Fund

Former Colorado Governor, Democrat Party Chief and Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent has been dipping into the special interest money to form a secret non-profit slush fund, praising his and the school district’s accomplishments.

Days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his support for an effort to break up the LAUSD, Superintendent Roy Romer quietly created a nonprofit organization that has raised nearly $150,000 to tout the school district’s accomplishments, the Daily News has learned.

Despite having the district’s nearly $1 million public-relations operation at his disposal, Romer founded Friends of L.A. Schools — with himself as CEO — to counter criticism by Schwarzenegger and then-mayoral challenger Bob Hertzberg that the Los Angeles Unified School District was too large and inefficient.

“This began in February when there was a lot of criticism of the district, to disband the district, and I felt we needed to communicate positively about what this district was about and what it’s doing,” Romer said Friday in a phone interview. “And when you get into the area of communications, I like not to spend public money if I can avoid it.

“Everybody else in town was talking about LAUSD and we thought we should talk about it too. There’s no secret or mystery about it.”

Disclosure of the fund raised questions among school board members who said they had only a vague knowledge of it and would press Romer for a full explanation next week.

Well, some of that “pay to play” construction money for the LAUSD had to go somewhere and why not to an old Pol like Romer.

The LAUSD is spending tens of millions of dollars on new schools and on a district administration bloated with waste.

Either break-up the district or let Mayor AV have a crack at it under the City of Los Angeles.

HT: Mayor Sam – check out their comments section