Orange Board Looks Forward

With a new majority solidly in place, the Orange school board now has two years to show whether its more union-friendly approach will bring peace to a school system that has struggled through one protracted battle after another.

A recall election in June changed the board’s majority from one supported by the Christian conservative movement in Orange County to one backed by the teachers union. On Tuesday, voters solidified the new board makeup by reelecting two of the candidates who first took their seats after the recall, and by voting in two new trustees from the same slate.

Incumbent Melissa Taylor Smith, a member of the new majority, successfully fought off a comeback attempt by recalled trustee Martin Jacobson. And challengers Kimberlee Nichols and Rick Ledesma beat trustees Terri Sargeant and Kathy Ward, members of the old majority.

The winners will be sworn in at the board’s regular meeting Dec. 13.

With two years before the next board election, residents now will see whether a change in several key policies in the 30,000-student district will staunch the exodus of educators while keeping schools solvent.

Former board member Linda Davis says her presence is still needed. The new board majority, which received hefty campaign contributions from the teachers union, could end up giving away the store to appease faculty demands for better pay and benefits, Davis and other former board members said.

“It may take the community to experience what we experienced 10 years ago [when the district struggled financially] to wake up,” said Davis, who was recalled in June and unsuccessfully sought her seat back from trustee Kathy Moffat in Tuesday’s election. “We will continue to be watchdogs over the school board. I live here; it is in my blood.”

Moffat said she welcomes constructive criticism, but she doesn’t want the the type of politically motivated dissension that has dogged the board in the past.

“The new board,” she assured, “will welcome differing points of view.”

Both sides already are clashing over district finances.

After the recall election, the new board commissioned a study on district operations. Unveiled last month, the resulting report said Orange Unified had consistently overestimated expenses and underestimated revenues and kept unnecessarily high levels of emergency reserves.

Olav Sorenson, an assistant professor at UCLA’s graduate school of management and author of the report, said that if those practices were corrected, the district could free up $7 million a year for other expenses.

But that report already is being questioned within the district.

Linda Gibbs, the director of financial services, said in a districtwide memo last week that Sorenson showed “a lack of understanding of . . . school finance or the [district’s] budget priorities.”

Gibbs declined to comment publicly about the Sorenson report, but her memo says the district has $2.7 million in its reserves that could go to teachers’ salaries. She warned against following Sorenson’s recommendations, which she said could run the district into insolvency.

Gibbs and Sorenson differ on what levels of emergency reserves are prudent and their estimations of costs for the various services the district provides. Navigating through these complex variables will be one of the first items on the new board’s agenda as the district continues to negotiate teachers’ pay with the local union.

Bob Viviano, a 10-year veteran of the board and its current president, said the new board is gathering all the facts to plan its course.

“The election was a landslide mandate,” he said. “The people who have been elected are all of very high integrity.”

Backers of the previous board say they will wait and see.