Former Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner is suing the district he once led, alleging LAUSD diverted $76.7 million in voter-approved arts education money away from classrooms.

The lawsuit, filed in February 2025 by Beutner along with a group of parents and students, accuses LAUSD of using Proposition 28 funds to replace existing arts spending rather than expand it. The case remains pending.

California voters approved Prop 28 in 2022 by nearly two-thirds. The measure, which Beutner wrote and funded with his personal wealth, sets aside 1% of the state's base education funding, close to $1 billion per year, for arts and music instruction. A key requirement: the money must supplement existing arts budgets, not replace them, and individual schools control how it's spent.

"Every school is supposed to use the money to hire teachers and provide arts classes at that school," Beutner told Our Weekly on Wednesday, Aug. 26.

What the lawsuit alleges

According to the Los Angeles Times, the suit lists 37 elementary schools that received the same or less money for arts instruction from 2022-23 to 2023-24, the first year Prop 28 dollars arrived. It alleges most LAUSD schools faced a similar situation.

An Aug. 15, 2024, internal memo obtained by the Times showed district officials acknowledged to the Board of Education that they used new arts money to replace existing funding for 167 of 227 elementary arts instructors during the 2023-24 school year. Officials argued in the same memo that their actions were legal because overall district arts spending still exceeded Prop 28 allocations.

Before the lawsuit was filed, LAUSD quietly added $30 million to the elementary school arts budget for the 2024-25 school year, the Times reported.

LAUSD's response

The district has denied wrongdoing. When the suit was filed, LAUSD said in a statement that it "continues to follow implementation guidance as provided by the state of California to ensure that we are fully complying with the requirements of Prop. 28," according to Deadline.

Superintendent Andrés Chait, who was permanently appointed after serving as acting superintendent following Alberto Carvalho's resignation in June, has not publicly addressed the lawsuit's allegations. In the same Our Weekly interview, Chait spoke broadly about enrollment, noting that about 20% of children living in Los Angeles do not attend LAUSD schools and that part of his responsibility is making the district more appealing to families.

Students speak up

Emma-Lee Del Hierro, a 16-year-old LAUSD student, said she expects the district to provide art supplies "instead of having art teachers use their own money or asking for donations from the community."

Noah Martinez, 13, said he looks forward to having art as a class in high school.

A legislative compromise

On Thursday, Aug. 20, Beutner announced he would support Assembly Bill 2440 (AB 2440), a proposal to clarify Prop 28 spending rules, after agreeing on amendments with Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance. The bill passed the state Assembly in May by a vote of 74-0. EdSource reported that the amendments aim to protect smaller and low-income schools' ability to expand arts programs.

The lawsuit remains pending, with no next court date publicly announced. LAUSD, the nation's second-largest school system with about 390,000 students, faces a projected deficit of up to $3.6 billion and the possibility of more than 6,000 job losses.