Over the weekend, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) Director of Communications Suzanne Spurgeon emailed us a statement about our Friday story on how UTLA has been reporting and spending its money so far in the LAUSD School Board campaign: “To our knowledge PACE has reported expenditures in a timely and proper manner. If there have...

Late on Friday, the Coalition for School Reform, an Independent Expenditure (IE) committee, filed paperwork indicating that it had spent its first money:  $45,457 for District 4 candidate Kate Anderson, $33,431 for District 6 candidate Antonio Sanchez and $29,238 for District 2 incumbent Monica Garcia. Most of the money went to The Feldman Group, which has...

School Board Steve Zimmer’s campaign fundraising has been less than stellar in terms of direct contributions, but it got a big boost this week courtesy of an Independent Expenditure (IE) from SEIU Local 99, which represents classified LAUSD employees. According to the latest expenditure reports, SEIU Local 99 has thrown down $68,688 to support Zimmer,...

The latest campaign and independent expenditure (IE) committee disclosures are being released today, January 24th, but you won’t find anything there from one of the city’s most powerful IE committees, UTLA-PACE. Why not? It’s because there are two different types of IE committees functioning in city-wide and LAUSD Board races —  ‘general purpose committees,’ and...

Wondering how to track all the money flowing into and out of the different campaigns for School Board and the independent expenditure (IE) committees that support them? It’s still not as easy to figure out as it might be — but we’re here to help. The most up-to-date filing schedule can be found here, on...

Over the three-day weekend, two powerful unions — the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the SEIU Local 99 (which represents classified LAUSD employees) kicked off what is expected to be an intense period of activity by independent expenditure (IE) committees over the next few months. The two organizations spent a combined $54,564 in support of School...

Semi-annual financial disclosure forms for independent expenditure (IE) committees aren’t due to the City Ethics Commission until January 31. However, some information can be obtained from the City Ethics Commission in between these reports. For example, the Coalition for School Reform  — a group of advocates including (but not limited to) charter school proponents — raised...

The Los Angeles City Ethics Commission has a handy, one-page document that gives an overview of the rules covering independent expenditures (IE) made to support or oppose LAUSD Board candidates. The rules are straightforward, at least in theory. But as LA School Report has shown in previous reporting, finding out exactly who’s giving to IEs can be tricky if...

The March 5 elections are less than three months away, and campaigns and advocates are busy hiring campaign consultants. The San Francisco-based SCN Strategies political consulting firm has confirmed that they will manage the independent expenditure (IE) campaign for the Coalition for School Reform. Meantime, three individual candidates — both union-endorsed and otherwise — have hired SG&A Campaigns to...

As the 2013 race for three LAUSD School Board seats heats up, so will the political fundraising that pays for the candidates’ campaigns. Just as they have in recent elections, independent expenditure (IE) committees are again likely to eclipse direct donations to candidates’ campaigns. At least one IE committee is ahead of the game: UTLA-PACE,...