The late Senator Everett Dirksen once said wryly about spending public money, “A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.”

By those standards, the Los Angeles school district (LAUSD) is a piker. But still…

Ten months after installing a new computerized payroll process that has been roiled by glitches, Los Angeles Unified officials now say costs for fixing the system and completing its rollout could top $210 million.

The system, with an original price tag of $95 million, has underpaid or overpaid thousands of employees, and last week district officials said hiring consultants to fix it has already ballooned the cost to $132.5 million.

And some officials are questioning the district’s transparency on all the costs associated with the system, noting that at least $6 million will be forfeited by allowing some overpaid teachers to keep the money.

This is the same gaggle of knuckleheads that built a $400 million high school on a toxic site. Question: can our educators learn?

A previous post on the botched payroll system here.