EDITORIAL : NOT ONE PENNY MORE; STATE SHOULD NOT GIVE LAUSD ANY STATE FUNDS UNTIL THE DISTRICT PROVES IT'S RESPONSIBLE.

IT's unthinkable that state officials would fork over a single penny of taxpayer funds to the Los Angeles Unified School District for building new schools until a site is certified as environmentally safe.

Given their miserable record of building schools on toxic sites without proper safeguards, LAUSD officials ought to be ashamed of themselves for trying to filch $300 million from the state through a loophole in the law.

Of course, the LAUSD officials responsible for the Belmont, Jefferson and South Gate toxic school fiascoes have no shame or they would have done the honorable thing and resigned long ago.

Clearly, the district will stop at nothing to exploit every loophole in state laws to snare as much cash as possible from the state treasury without safeguards ensuring it will be spent properly.

Under the statewide school construction bond measure, which voters approved as Proposition 1A last fall, $1.3 billion was available this year for new school construction.

But LAUSD officials failed to even apply for $1 of the money. That's because thorough environmental and planning studies have to be conducted of sites before the state turns over the money, and the LAUSD has no capacity to plan and no demonstrated concern for the safety of children.

Better as lawyers than builders or educators, LAUSD officials found an obscure provision in the bond issue setting aside funds for overcrowded schools unable to meet class-size reduction goals.

This provision allows LAUSD to get state funding without undertaking environmental or planning studies.

This is a prescription for disaster, or in terms we all understand, it is another Belmont Learning Center in the making.

Only irresponsible fools would put this kind of money in the hands of the very same people who have tried to build one toxic school after another.

No money should be given to the LAUSD until officials prove that they have cleaned up their dirty toilets and identified who did what at Belmont and when, and until we know whether their corruption was moral or criminal and those responsible have been held accountable.

At the very least, state education officials ought to put any money designated to LAUSD into a trust fund and turn over the money only when stringent conditions are met for site safety and construction planning.

The Proposition BB oversight committee that holds the purse strings for local matching money also has an important role to play.

The committee's chairman, mayoral candidate Steve Soboroff, should keep the heat on the district and not free up matching funds without a management housecleaning and environmental safeguards in place.

It is understandable that the new reform-minded school board would want to get moving to meet the need for new schools in Los Angeles.

But it would be wrong, and it would be irresponsible. Most of the same people who are culpable for the Belmont scandal still hold powerful LAUSD jobs.

The past must be redeemed before the future can be claimed.

Exploiting a loophole in the law is no way to restore public confidence.