LAUSD Approves Another $250 Million in Bonds to Pay Sexual Abuse Claims

The Los Angeles Unified School District is borrowing another $250 million to pay sexual misconduct claims, adding to a $500 million bond authorization approved less than a year ago. The school board voted unanimously this week to let the administration buy a new round of "judgment obligation bonds."

District cost estimates put the combined price of both issues, financing included, at more than $1 billion. The money will come out of the general fund and be repaid over at least a decade, which officials say softens the immediate hit to the budget. The bonds work like a loan from investors that the district can draw on as claims come due.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told the board the district is "exhausting funds available to us" for sex and molestation cases, many of them decades old and cases the district is unable to defend successfully. Without the bonds, he said, the district would have to pay the multimillion-dollar judgments in cash from its general fund.

Karla Griego, the newest member of the seven-member Board of Education, appeared stunned by the figures. She asked why the bonds were needed, what the district was doing to stop the financial drain and whether more claims were likely. Officials said the district is lobbying for legislative relief and that more claims could follow. No other board member commented, and last year's vote on the original $500 million also came without public discussion.

The liability traces to Assembly Bill 218, passed in 2019. It opened a three-year window, which closed at the end of 2022, for adults to sue over childhood sexual abuse dating back as far as the 1940s. The law also sets an ongoing deadline for such claims at age 40 or five years after a victim reasonably should have understood the harm, whichever is later. State legislators are weighing changes, and critics say the law is pushing local governments toward bankruptcy.

Between Jan. 1, 2020, and mid-2025, about 370 people brought abuse claims against LAUSD under the law, according to the district. Roughly 76 allege abuse from the 1940s through the 1970s, and another 45 to 50 allege abuse in the 1980s. Dozens of cases have been settled or dismissed, and more than 275 were active as of mid-2025, the latest figures available. The problem extends beyond Los Angeles: a Times investigation found California school districts have paid nearly half a billion dollars in past abuse settlements and could owe billions more.

The costs are significant even when spread over years. The district estimated last year that the original bonds and financing would cost more than $765 million, with annual payments potentially reaching $50 million. The new bonds and financing are estimated at nearly $383 million.

On Tuesday, the district also approved eliminating 657 central and regional office jobs to save $150 million a year. The payouts are not directly tied to layoffs or raises, and the district also faces the end of one-time COVID-19 relief aid and falling enrollment. Still, Michael H. Fine of the state's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team said the payouts "directly 'compete'" with money for teachers, custodians, bus drivers and textbooks. UC Law San Francisco professor David Levine said the fix "needs to come from the Legislature, which imposed this unfunded mandate."

Transparency has also been a concern. A Times investigation found LAUSD put confidentiality clauses in at least seven sexual misconduct settlements since 2000, and a Times review found the district was responsible for more than $372 million in judgments and settlements between 2012 and 2024.