COLLEGES WRONGLY GOT FUNDS PROBLEMS FOUND IN DUAL-ENROLLMENT CLASSES.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

SACRAMENTO - As much as $36 million in state money was improperly claimed last year by California community college districts for classes that provided college credit to high school students, according to a preliminary report.

The analysis by the California Community Colleges chancellor's office found that such dual-enrollment classes are beset by problems ranging from record-keeping shortcomings to possible fraud.

The chancellor's office said $510,000 had been wrongly claimed by the Los Angeles Community College District and would have to be repaid, although a campus-by-campus breakout was unavailable. There also were relatively large numbers of students in questionable programs in the Santa Clarita and Ventura districts, the report said.

The review was triggered by a series of articles in The Orange County Register which revealed that some high school athletes were enrolled in college-credit physical education courses that were, in fact, regular high school sports practices. Some community colleges then boosted their enrollment figures and wrongly received state funding.

Coaches also coerced students into signing up for the fake community college courses, allowing the coaches to receive pay for their work from the high schools and community colleges, the Register reported.

The preliminary report downplays the extent of possible fraud, saying: ``Our investigations to date lead us to believe that such violations are very limited or isolated.''

The report also showed there were problems with programs in about half of the state's 72 community college systems and singled out 18 districts as having questionable enrollments requiring further investigation.

The nine-member LACCD, which is the largest in the state, had so many questionable courses - including 1,195 physical education courses - that the chancellor's office permitted the district to hire an independent accountant to audit the district's compliance. The state chancellor's office is still analyzing that report.

But the LACCD amended its 2001-2002 apportionment claims by nearly 3,800 full-time-equivalency students. LACCD also will have to give back $510,000 to the chancellor's office, officials said.

LACCD Board President Warren Furutani said the district took steps to eliminate the questionable physical education classes before they became controversial, and there are no such classes offered now. The district also didn't benefit financially because it already had 14,000 students the state wasn't funding.