EDITORIAL LOST LUNCHES LAUSD'S FOOD PROGRAM IS OFF COURSE BECAUSE OF POOR MANAGEMENT.

THE fiscal hemorrhaging of the LAUSD's food service division, which lost $72 million in three years, is the perfect example of how such an enormous bureaucracy is slow to react to change.

The once-profitable division started losing money in the late 1990s after a change in menu. But because the Los Angeles Unified School District has so many layers of management, it took years before someone said whoa. To compound that, an error in the application process kicked kids out of the free lunch program, resulting in a loss of $20 million in federal subsidies, not to mention many children left hungry.

While blunders likes this might not sink the Titanic that is LAUSD, each hit affects the integrity of its seaworthiness and diminishes its successes. Superintendent Roy Romer still has a lot of work to do to professionalize the bureaucracy.