L.A. County prosecutors investigate alleged Brown Act violations at ABC Unified School District

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is investigating allegations that the ABC Unified School District Board of Education violated one of the state’s government transparency laws.

A district attorney’s spokeswoman confirmed the office’s Public Integrity Division was looking into a complaint that the district had skirted the public meeting law known as the Brown Act, but she declined to provide details. A district source said investigators are specifically asking about the board’s closed-door sessions and the approval last year of an employment contract with Supt. Mary Sieu. A provision added to the contract gave her 25 years of fully paid medical, dental and vision insurance benefits in retirement.

The district released a statement from the board’s current president and vice president denying that any laws were broken when Sieu’s contract was approved.

Just before the vote was taken publicly at the board’s Jan. 20, 2015, meeting, then board President Maynard Law characterized the new agreements with administrators as “continuations” of “existing contracts,” according to a recording of the hearing. The only changes he mentioned were compensation increases that “every other employee in the district received.” He didn’t mention Sieu’s additional retirement health benefits, which were the most significant change in the contract. No other board member spoke up, and the contracts passed unanimously.

The agenda staff report also omitted any information about the retirement perk. The only change mentioned was a 3% salary raise — which according to Law was districtwide — and its fiscal impact. The increase brought Sieu’s annual base compensation to $231,681, the contract shows.

The district source, who requested anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said that Sieu’s contract, and specifically the retirement health benefits, were discussed and approved in a closed-session board meeting less than two hours before the vote in open session. If that happened, the closed-door discussion would have violated laws on government meetings because the matter wasn’t placed on the board’s agenda, an expert on the state’s open-meetings law told the Los Angeles Times.

Law and Sieu didn’t return phone calls for comment. The statement from board President Olympia Chen and Vice President Chris Apodaca said Sieu’s contract was properly placed on the open session agenda and that no “action or board discussion occurred in the closed session.” It also stated that past superintendents had the same retirement health benefits, which were awarded to Sieu as an incentive to keep a “highly respected, preeminent superintendent.”

“Dr. Sieu has been with the district for 27 years and has helped build ABC Unified into one of the finest districts in the state,” the statement read.

The ABC Unified School District operates schools that serve over 20,000 K-12 students living in the small gateway cities that border Orange County, including Cerritos, Artesia and Hawaiian Gardens.

An email sent to board members and obtained by The Times said Law had been visited at his home last week and questioned by a D.A. investigator with the public integrity unit, the division that investigates public corruption.

“This was an unexpected visit,” the Aug. 17 email from board President Olympia Chen stated. “If they contact you, you may refer them to Jim Baca, our legal counsel.”

Under the Brown Act, governing bodies must conduct the vast majority of their business in public and provide adequate public notice about the actions they’ll be considering.

There are a few narrow exceptions to this rule. Governing bodies such as the school district board can meet in closed session to discuss personnel matters, but any change in compensation must be voted on publicly, said Terry Francke, general counsel at the open government advocacy group Californians Aware.

Francke questioned whether Sieu’s contract was approved in compliance with the law, even if it wasn’t discussed in closed session, because the most significant change to Sieu’s contract — the addition of 25 years of retirement health benefits — wasn’t disclosed on the agenda, and was omitted from the staff report.

Baca says the law only requires that the contract be on the agenda for approval. He also said the contract was available for public inspection upon request at the meeting and the district’s office.

Francke said the situation was a “poster child” for a new bill that the governor signed into law this month and that will become effective Jan. 1. The law would require an oral report given publicly before a vote on executive compensation, he said.

adam.elmahrek@latimes.com

Twitter: @adamelmahrek

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UPDATES:

1:55 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from the school district.

This article was originally published at 11:05 a.m.