AN AUDIT THE San Francisco controller released last week, revealing that the San Francisco Unified School District can't properly account for some $43 million in bond money, shows that Superintendent Arlene Ackerman still has a long way to go to restore public trust in school administration – and it's absolutely essential that she and the school board members act right now.

The schools are desperately underfunded, and the governor is making things worse. So there's talk among some school board members of asking voters to approve a parcel tax for public education. That's generally a good idea, one that's worked in the East Bay, and we've always supported the concept. But it's never going to pass unless Ackerman can demonstrate that she can be trusted with more public money.

To his credit, Eric Mar, the new board president, has appointed three sunshine supporters – Sarah Lipson, Mark Sanchez, and Norman Yee – to the ad hoc committee that's charged with reviewing the district's open-government policies. Last fall the board, then dominated by sunshine foes, rejected a very reasonable measure Lipson drafted; it would have simply required that the district abide by the city's Sunshine Ordinance unless that ordinance conflicted with state law or interfered with the confidentiality of student records. It's time to bring that back and get it on the new board's agenda.

P.S. The Community College Board dealt a blow to open government last week when Milton Marks III, who has been leading efforts to get that agency to abide by the sunshine law, was defeated in his bid for board presidency. That was an unusual move: traditionally, the top job has gone to the member who gets the most votes in the most recent election, and that was Marks. But an alliance of four members who have been on the wrong side of almost every major issue (Natalie Berg, Rodel Rodis, Johnny Carter, and Lawrence Wong) instead gave the presidency to Rodis. So it's clear the same old sleazy crew is still in charge over at Phelan Avenue – and if this gang can't at the very least accept the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force's very modest proposals to bring City College under some sort of reasonable public oversight, then every one should be marked for political extinction. And as long as the board insists on official secrecy, we don't want to hear another word about more bond money for City College.