The Riverside school district will be audited by a state panel investigating the alleged misuse of dollars from Measure O, a bond measure voters approved in 2016.
The California Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted Wednesday, June 18, to audit the Riverside Unified School District over its planned STEM high school to be built at UC Riverside and be paid for by Measure O.
The audit will examine how the district has spent Measure O money, its transparency throughout the process and how the district chose its projects.
Riverside-area voters passed Measure O, a $392 million bond, to upgrade and renovate aging campuses and to build new school facilities.
The audit, requested by state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, aims to assess whether the Riverside school board complied with state transparency laws when deciding to use Measure O money to build the STEM high school. It also will evaluate whether the board complied with state law governing the proper use of measure funding and determine whether a recent lease between the board and UC Riverside is transparent and protects the school district.
School district spokesperson Liz Pinney-Muglia responded with a statement.
“The Riverside Unified Board of Trustees takes seriously the duty to steward public dollars as evidenced by our long tradition of fiscal stability and planning, even in the toughest of times,” Pinney-Muglia wrote in a Tuesday, June 20, text message.
She said bond funds have directly benefited students across the district through improvements to buildings, infrastructure, playgrounds and dedicated learning spaces for STEM and other career technical education opportunities and two new schools.
“Previous audits and legal proceedings have proven good stewardship is in place,” Pinney-Muglia wrote. “We welcome any recommendations that may emerge from an additional audit.”
The STEM Academy, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and math, serves grades 5-12 and is filled by a lottery system. The Riverside school board plans to use $64 million from Measure O to build a new campus for the academy’s high school students, which is set to be located near North High School, Cervantes said during the hearing.
“My fear is that the STEM center project would draw away resources from other high schools,” Cervantes said.
The district set aside $50 million from Measure O funds for major upgrades to North High in 2021. The school will see a new eight-classroom science building at the front of the campus and a new gymnasium at the back.
Other concerns were brought up surrounding what Cervantes called the district’s “opaque” behavior regarding its use of the funding. The board has made decisions behind closed doors without public input, she said, and Measure O was intended to refurbish existing schools.
Cervantes said her concerns are not about how good the school would be, but about whether the board followed the law.
Rich Davis, a community member and former Riverside Unified administrator, appeared as a witness at Wednesday’s hearing.
Davis and others went to Cervantes to express concerns about the management of the proposed project over the past decade, Cervantes wrote in a Friday, June 20, email.
“I felt it was imperative to advocate on their behalf,” Cervantes said.
Davis said that, since 2016, residents have been fighting decisions by past and current board members who he said have special interests.
Davis contended that the STEM school was never included on the district’s list of projects and was only added after the bond passed.
“Over the years we have seen a disturbing pattern of a lack of transparency,” Davis said.
He said that, after years of controversy and “gas lighting” by the district, an audit was urgently needed.
Grant Parks, a California state auditor who presented the case to the committee, said the audit would be straightforward and take about 2,300 hours. It will look at the board’s actions and decisions in selecting projects as well as how money was allocated, he said.
One aspect of the audit is already under litigation, Parks said. In 2024, a judge ruled that the district could use Measure O funding to build the STEM school. That decision is under appeal.
The STEM Academy, which opened in August 2011, is housed at the former Hyatt Elementary School. The school, located near UCR, was built to house 360 students.
During her Wednesday testimony, Superintendent Renee Hill said the district and UCR signed a memorandum of understanding to create a STEM high school on or near the university and signed a lease agreement in 2018.
Hill, who announced in February that she’d retire in July, said the school is comprised of 77% students of color and was named the No. 1 high school in California for 2023-24. It was among the top 10 in the country on a USA Today list that same year.
The audit is another controversy for Riverside schools.
Community members called for Hill’s resignation in December after a November lawsuit alleging the district violated students’ First Amendment rights and denied them equal access to athletics.
In the federal lawsuit, a Martin Luther King High School student alleged she was replaced on her cross country team in favor of a transgender athlete. Just before Hill’s announcement, a district groundskeeper was put on leave after being charged with 19 felonies, including lewd acts on a minor younger than 14 years old.
In 2024, the district reported that $926,800 in Measure O dollars was stolen by someone posing as a construction manager for the Riverside-based Tilden-Coil Constructors. As of September, the investigation had recovered $148,178 and the district has been reimbursed $778,621 through self-insurance, money the district set aside as a fallback for potential losses.
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