Heating and cooling equipment installed upside down. A ramp for the disabled too steep for wheelchairs. A leaning tower of time. A $3.4 million renovation for a theater slated for demolition. Payouts to everyone from airborne videographers to feng shui experts.

Welcome to community college!

These and a litany of other failures and abuses are chronicled in a new Los Angeles Times article on the disaster that has been the Los Angeles Community College District’s decade-long, $5.7 billion building orgy. It’s a tale made especially sickening by California college officials’ repeated wailing that state budget cuts are forcing them to dig “deep into bone.” It’s also galling in the face of Washington politicians’ continued berating of for-profit schools and blind-eye-turning toward excess throughout higher ed. And topping it all off, President Obama recently proclaimed community colleges the “unsung heroes” of American education.

They’ve certainly earned the “unsung” part.