Crosswalk Guards Cut in Budget Error

Crossing guards at 132 schools across Los Angeles County are officially dropped from the payroll beginning today because $1.7 million was inadvertently omitted from the county budget, officials said Tuesday.

The money, used to pay 180 guards at an annual cost of almost $10,000 per guard, was not included in the county budget adopted last month, leaving children to cross streets unsupervised unless officials come up with the money.

Although only a fraction of the 132 elementary schools with county-provided guards are in session, their absence will be apparent next month when traditional school schedules begin, said Phil Kauble, head of the crossing guard program for the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

“I would say the obvious impact is the potential for disaster,” Kauble said. “Any time you have kids crossing a street, even a controlled intersection . . . it puts students at risk.”

The Office of Education learned earlier this month that no money was set aside in the $13.5-billion county budget for the 15-year-old program. Officials were not sure how the crossing guard program, administered through the county’s Public Works Department, was overlooked.

“It’s one of those items that’s normally buried deeply in the budget package. I don’t really think (the supervisors) knew what they were voting. It was something that just unfortunately fell through the cracks.”

In the meantime, county school officials have agreed to cover costs for 15 schools with guards that are in session, in the hopes that the county will be able to come forward with funding. That commitment ended Tuesday. The guards are located at 34 school districts as far north as Castaic and as far south as Hawthorne.

Supervisor Michael Antonovich proposed Tuesday that the county cover 20% of the program’s cost--about $340,000--leaving the remaining 80%, or $1.36 million, to be picked up by the individual school districts.

“With hundreds of thousands of children preparing to return to school within the next few weeks, it is unthinkable that they should be left to fend for themselves at busy and dangerous crossings throughout the county,” Antonovich said.

Antonovich said the supervisors would not be able to act on his motion until next week at the earliest.