LAUSD payroll ills prompt state action

Charging that the Los Angeles Unified School District is wasting taxpayer funds and dragging its feet in filing a lawsuit against the company responsible for rolling out a problem-plagued computerized payroll system, a state assemblyman said he will introduce a bill Monday to urge the district to recoup any lost money. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

Assemblyman Kevin de Leon said he will introduce Assembly Bill 730, which would prevent any contractor found by a court liable for breach of an information-technology contract worth more than $1 million - and the judgment is greater than $250,000 - from bidding on any new business with the state or any local government for five years.

De Leon said the bill was prompted by LAUSD payroll problems in which thousands of employees have been underpaid or overpaid since February 2007.

He charged Deloitte & Touche with conducting something akin to a "very sophisticated scam," in which - despite being paid $55 million to smoothly roll out the system - the company requested an additional $9.4 million to fix the problems.