EDITORIAL NO MONEY FOR HEROES ACADECA GALA NEARLY DIES FROM LAUSD NEGLECT.

THE Los Angeles Unified School District has some odd funding priorities. It can provide employment to a bloated bureaucracy, yet it lets the annual event honoring its best and brightest come perilously close to dying for want of a few dollars - by LAUSD standards.

The district's 59 Academic Decathalon teams have brought home 11 state and six national titles. The annual awards dinner held at the Bonaventure Hotel for about $25,000 for years was sponsored by Coca-Cola, but the company pulled its sponsorship last month after the district banned sodas from campuses.

Since then, district officials made utterly no effort to come up with the money beyond accepting a $35 contribution from a San Fernando Valley parent whose kids benefited from Acadeca. Of course, the district could have fired just one overpaid administrator to come up with the money for next year's event - and for the next five years.

Embarrassed by his underlings' failure, Superintendent Roy Romer promised to come up with $5,000. And then an angel appeared - West Hills businessman Barry Woods, who reached into his own pocket rather than see the student heroes lose their celebration.

So the gala will go on, no thanks to the LAUSD.