The Daily News and Times Take a Swipe at LAUSD Consultants
Here's what the Daily News editorial had to say about LAUSD hiring image consultants.
And here's the Times' take:
The Los Angeles Unified School District feels misunderstood. Picked on by journalists who won't stop reporting on its payroll nightmare. (OK, there are other reasons it feels picked on, but that's the big one at the moment.)
Since January, thousands of employees have been underpaid or overpaid. The district says those who were overpaid need to return a total of $53 million, but those employees don't believe the district's figures and want hard proof before they yield one penny. At the same time, thousands of employees have been underpaid by $7 million. School officials promise to pay them what they're owed, but many of those employees don't believe the district either.
So what does the district do to correct the natural perception of its incompetence? Fix the problem? Nope. As first reported by our colleagues at the Daily News, it hires image consultants. It's paying Victor Abalos, a consultant for Supt. David L. Brewer, $178,000 for one year to restructure the district's PR department. It's also paying Michael Bustamante $90,000 for six months to focus on the payroll fiasco, and it has signed up the public relations firm Rogers Group as well. This, the paper reports, is on top of a six-person communications department with a $1.4-million budget. And they expect journalists not to pick on them?
Click here for the full editorial.
And Howard Blume wrote about LAUSD being warned that it falls short of state standards.