$24.6 Million for Schools if County Settles

SANTA ANA — Local schools, which lost millions of dollars when Orange County’s investment pool crashed three years ago, will get a sizable chunk of their money back if the county settles a damage suit against its former bond attorneys, officials said.

The schools would receive $24.6 million, more than half of the $45.3 million that LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae has agreed to pay the county to settle its bankruptcy-related suit.

The remainder would be apportioned to some of the other 200 agencies that lost $1.64 billion when the county declared its historic bankruptcy in December 1994, according to a detailed breakdown of the payments obtained by The Times on Wednesday.

The deal is being held up by the North Orange County Community College District, which is a party to the county’s legal action and has a separate legal dispute with LeBoeuf.

Attorneys for LeBoeuf say they will not turn over any money unless the county gets the community college district to drop its separate suit. Lawyers for the college district have refused to accept that condition.

Officials of several school districts said the delay in settling the dispute between the college district and the county was robbing them of funds needed to repair cracked playground surfaces, leaky roofs and obsolete classrooms.

“Schools are losing money every day this isn’t settled,” said John Nelson, assistant superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education. “It’s important that we wrap this up quickly.”

Ed Decker, a trustee with the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, said his district would use some of the nearly $2 million it would receive from the LeBoeuf settlement to repair classrooms and facilities.

“My concerns with the El Nino rain coming is that roofs are repaired so we don’t have leaks,” Decker said.

But it appears unlikely that the district will receive any funds soon.

College district officials have refused to drop their suit despite heavy pressure by county officials. Last week, Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner asked county lawyers to determine if the county could freeze more than $250,000 in funding for the college district.

On Wednesday, sources told The Times that the county was exploring other options, including the possibility of getting legislators in Sacramento to cut off some state funds allocated annually to the district.

Edmond M. Connor, an attorney for the college district, confirmed Wednesday that “there have been threats about what will happen to our district’s funds coming out of Sacramento if we do not play ball as dictated by the county.”

Said Connor: “The district remains mystified as to why there is such a concerted effort reaching all the way to Sacramento to protect the assets of a large law firm.”

Connor argued that the county has entered into a “sweetheart deal” with LeBoeuf because, under the settlement, the law firm’s malpractice insurance will cover any payment up to $50 million.

After the county filed bankruptcy, both the college district and the investment pool filed suits alleging that LeBoeuf failed to alert them to former Treasurer Robert L. Citron’s high-flying investment strategies, even though LeBoeuf’s partners had intimate knowledge of the treasurer’s activities.

The college district would receive about $2 million from the proposed LeBoeuf settlement. That is in addition to the $2.1 million it is expected to receive later this month, its portion of the $30 million that Wall Street brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. paid to end a grand jury investigation related to the bankruptcy.

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Accounts Payable

LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae’s agreement to pay the county about $45 million would mean about $25 million for school investment pool participants and about $20 million for city and other non-school entities. Amounts due the districts and some individual cities:

School District: Amount

Anaheim Elementary: $179,299

Anaheim High School: 433,922

Brea-Olinda: 170,635

Buena Park Elementary: 98,345

Capistrano Unified: 1,384,461

Centralia Elementary: 197,026

Cypress Elementary: 155,434

Fountain Valley Elementary: 127,194

Fullerton Elementary: 115,860

Fullerton High School: 593,703

Garden Grove Unified: 1,248,628

Huntington Beach Elementary: 209,270

Huntington Beach Union High: 462,807

Irvine Unified: 2,222,481

La Habra Elementary: 300,604

Laguna Beach Unified: 161,612

Los Alamitos Unified: 228,212

Lowell Joint Elementary: 5,453

Magnolia Elementary: 134,135

Newport Mesa Unified: 1,874,098

Ocean View Elementary: 231,147

Orange Unified: 451,470

Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified: 1,920,129

Rossmoor Unified: 120

Saddleback Valley Unified: 1,067,174

San Joaquin Elementary: 65

Santa Ana Unified: 1,135,872

Savanna Elementary: 80,296

Shandon Unified: 4,124

Tustin Unified: 203,862

Westminster Elementary: 309,689

Yorba Linda Elementary: 275

Orange County Dept. of Education: 1,278,992

College District: Amount

Coast Community College: $511,682

North Orange County Community College: 1,954,843

Rancho Santiago Community College: 380,741

Saddleback Community College: 559,350

City: Amount

Anaheim *: $1,053,642

Brea **: 57,867

Costa Mesa **: 21,503

Cypress: 36,361

Dana Point: 97,373

Fountain Valley ***: 191,420

Fullerton: 141,762

Huntington Beach: 272,809

Irvine: 1,283,501

La Habra: 50,510

La Palma: 34,368

Laguna Beach: 48,163

Laguna Hills: 5,549

Laguna Niguel: $112,297

Lake Forest: 58,398

Los Alamitos: 13,264

Mission Viejo: 115,773

Newport Beach: 96,418

Orange: 174,112

Placentia: 127,805

San Clemente: 220,661

Santa Ana **: 777,393

Seal Beach: 12,585

Stanton: 18,168

Tustin: 1,419

Villa Park: 7,856

Westminster: 881

* Includes funds for hazardous-materials response authority, public financing authority and redevelopment agency

** Includes redevelopment agency

***Includes community development agency

Source: County of Orange