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Here’s a neat business model.

RKL insures your car. RKL steals your car and resells it. RKL replaces your car and raises your premiums because 1) you’re a theft risk and 2) to fund other anti-theft campaigns with RKL client companies and advertising.

After an exhaustive review, the RKL ethics panel finds no wrongdoing. But because they mean well, they’ve created a new rule that prohibits “the appearance of misconduct.”

This is pretty much describes the ongoing relationship between Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and their lobbyists. And Tony Soprano thinks there’s money in waste management?

Anyway, four years after Sacramento lobbying firm Rose Kindel (RK) used classroom funds to promote a $3.3 billion bond measure in 2002 that helped RK’s other clients, the Daily News reports that they’re still doing the same thing. And because corruption is so rampant in Los Angeles and throughout the LAUSD, it’s hard for some of us to care anymore.

Lobbyists like Cristina Rose and Maureen Kindel donate thousands of dollars to prominent Democrats who’ve never shown much concern about where the money comes from. After all, they have rules against unethical conduct.

You can visit your LAUSD tax dollars when you pass by Cristina and Maureen’s Hollywood and Palisades homes.

Speaking of municipal corruption, the Los Angeles Times continues to carry water for Mayor Villaraigosa and his ambitious LAUSD takeover bid. (I’ve illustrated LAUSD’s problem, and Villaraigosa’s solution.)

Villaraigosa’s objective is to take over Democrat control of LAUSD’s ongoing criminal enterprise. The entire Los Angeles City budget is only about $5 billion, so you can imagine what he could skim from LAUSD’s $13.4 billion budget. Democrats used $100 million of classroom funding last year to oppose Prop 75, so does anyone wonder why LAUSD and Villaraigosa are fighting so hard for control?

Villaraigosa’s pubic relations firm, the LA Times, recently endorsed the Mayor’s plan (again) and cited the mayoral takeover of Boston Public Schools as an example of success. The Times reported that under Mayor Thomas Menino’s direction, Boston’s high school math requirements are creeping closer to those of India’s second graders, while classroom spending is up to “$10,000 per classroom from the 1996 level of $6,350 per child.”

How did Menino do it? To find out, I reviewed his 2007 school budget report.

Despite an enrollment drop of 2.1% from 2006, Boston’s public school budget is up 3.1 percent to $734,500,000. This means that Boston’s per child budget is about $12,900 per child ($734,500.000 ÷ 56,806 students). But Boston also reports that 78 percent of their budget goes to employee salary and benefits. Given these numbers, a classroom of 30 children would generate $300,000. Does the teacher earn $100,000/year salary and deliver $100,000 in supplies in a classroom that costs $100,000/year to maintain, or do 78 percent of all active and retired school employees live and work inside each classroom?

The lady at Boston’s Communications Office didn’t know and asked me to email my question to her office.

I did. They received it.

I’m still waiting for an answer.

I’m not holding my breath.

Clark Baker lives in Los Angeles.  This previously appeared on his blog, Ex-Liberal in Hollywood.