Voters passed a series of bond measures to renovate Los Angeles’ Community Colleges beginning in 2001.

Officials promised quality control and rigid oversight for a 5.7 billion initiative to bring neglected Los Angeles community college campuses up-to-date, but a Los Angeles Times investigation suggests massive waste and shoddy work.

At Los Angeles Valley College the new 48 million dollar Allied Health and Science Center continues to be plagued with problems.

“We found that tens of millions of dollars had been wasted that could have been spent to build more buildings and more facilities for the students,” said Gale Holland, one of the Los Angeles Times writers who spent 18 months investigating the $5.7-billion program.

Documents obtained through the California Public Records Act did not match what college officials were saying publicly, pointing to waste of millions of dollars.

“A lot of people said you’re just complaining about nothing look at how beautiful it is,” said Donald Gauthier, Geography and Environmental Science Professor at Valley College. “I said, well, it’s beautiful in some respects but if it doesn’t work it’s not functional we can’t use it.”

Following a heavy downpour in the San Fernando Valley, offices in the new Allied Health and Science facility became flooded. And an undetected source of leaks prompted the Los Angeles City College District to hire a different contractor to fix existing problems.

“We put a lot of effort doing this correctly,” said Tom Jacobsmeyer, vice president of administrative services at Valley College. “Some of the decisions taken out of context don’t stand up very well in print so we would like the opportunity to explain how we have come these decisions and that the effort, we feel, is a good one.”

The district is currently in court, seeking to recover money from FTR International of Irvine, the company responsible for the Allied Health and Science building complex.

In a recent press release the district argued the community college renovation project has been heavily audited and well managed.