Reaction Is Mixed to BHUSD's Decision to Use Measure E Funds on Subway Fight

A decision by the Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education to use money to pay for some expenses related to the fight against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is raising eyebrows.

The board earlier this week to take $244,272 in subway-related spending from Measure E funds rather than the general school fund. The vote came as the board was deciding on teacher layoffs for the next school year, and transferring the money freed up those funds to pay teachers.

The money is part of the in funds that the board has approved to fight a Metro proposal to tunnel under Beverly Hills High School as part of the .

BHUSD's bond counsel recently told the district that it could use Measure E funds for MTA-related expenses because the Metro proposal would greatly impact construction plans at BHHS.

“The legal opinion from [the] bond counsel is an independent analysis from an attorney who specializes in rendering opinions on appropriate expenditures of bond funds,” Assistant Superintendent for Business Services Alex Cherniss told Patch. “We almost always follow his legal advice.” 

Jake Manaster and Myra Lurie, the two board members who dissented in the vote, disagreed with Cherniss.

"Bond counsel is paid in conjunction with and relies upon the bond underwriters for business,” Manaster told Patch.

During the board discussion, Manaster proposed an amendment that would make approval of the transfer subject to a review of the invoices that were to be paid with the $244,272. But the amendment was not adopted.

“I was not convinced that all the expenses were legal in nature and that is what I asked for,” he said. “Therefore I voted no in the absence of that assurance being included in the language of the motion [to transfer the funds].”

Lurie said she believed that some of the expenses in the funds being transferred included public relations and lobbying activities.

“I do not believe it is appropriate to use bond funds for these types of expenditures,” she told Patch. Like Manaster, she also worried that the bond counsel’s views were not impartial.

Critics of the school board’s opposition to the MTA proposal have already jumped on the money transfer as evidence that the board is being irresponsible with taxpayer funds in its pursuit against the subway route.

“Taxpayers of Beverly Hills should be aware of the board's shell game in moving around money so that it can continue with its losing battle against the subway,” read a Patch comment from Joel Epstein on . Epstein is an outspoken proponent of allowing the subway to go under BHHS to a stop on Constellation Boulevard in Century City.

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