Ex-Orange School Chief Breaks Silence on Alleged Fraud

“I felt I had a citizen’s responsibility.”

That was the response Thursday by former Orange Unified School District Supt. Kenneth D. Brummel, the man who first blew the whistle on suspected fraud in the district, when asked why he risked angering the school board that hired him by going directly to the police.

In an interview with The Times--his first since the Orange Unified School Board, in effect, fired him last October--Brummel recounted the events of 1984 that this year led to grand jury indictments of a former employee and three other persons, and a continuing investigation of an alleged multimillion-dollar bid-rigging scandal.

Brummel is a central figure in the still-unfolding investigation. The Orange County district attorney’s office has said that Brummel is the person who triggered the inquiry.

But Brummel has kept a low profile since he was dismissed by the school board. He has given no interviews and made no public statements.

On Thursday, he broke his self-imposed silence and agreed to talk about one of the biggest education scandals in Orange County history. Seated on a couch in his Santa Ana condominium, Brummel referred to his relaxed mode of dress and said, “I’m going casual.”

Then, in response to questions, he recalled the summer of 1984, when he had just arrived as new superintendent of the money-plagued Orange Unified School District. Money was extremely short, Brummel pointed out, because of a plunging student enrollment.

But Brummel said he never had dreamed that fraud and theft might have been one drain on the school budget. In fact, Brummel said, there was an element of coincidence in how he made a discovery that suggested money was being spent illegally.

When a subordinate left the district in the summer of 1984, Brummel said he temporarily handled paperwork in the employee’s office in addition to his superintendent’s job. And while going through that paperwork, Brummel said, he discovered that the school district appeared to be needlessly paying money for work that benefited a private business.

“I started to discover things that concerned me about the management and operations program in the district,” Brummel said. He explained that while only one item initially caught his eye, “that led to other questions that finally suggested to me that I didn’t have the kind of expertise to do the kind of investigation that we needed, and I therefore went to the (City of Orange) police chief, and said, ‘I need help.’ ”

Brummel confirmed that he didn’t inform the school board before he went to the police with his suspicions of fraud. And Brummel said that after he had called in the police, “strained relations” existed between him and the trustees.

Asked why he didn’t consult the board before acting, Brummel responded: “I felt I had a citizen’s responsibility--that this was something that had to be reported to the Police Department.”

Brummel said he doesn’t consider himself as having been fired by the school board. “The board decided not to renew my contract, and the board doesn’t have to give a reason,” he added. “It was my request to be let go early if they weren’t going to renew my contract. I didn’t think it would be for the best interest of the schools for me to be operating as a lame-duck superintendent.”

Since October, when he was dismissed, Brummel, 52, has been forming an education-consulting business in Tustin. His co-partner in the firm, Legislative Services, is Jacque Wilson, who resigned last March as the school district’s director of community relations.

In a 45-minute interview at his condominium, Brummel made no criticism of the school board, either individually or as a group. Under a legal pact he signed in October, allowing the board to end his three-year contract eight months early, Brummel agreed not to say anything negative about the board.

The seven-member school board came under scrutiny by the Orange County Grand Jury this spring. On Tuesday, the grand jury issued a legal document that accuses four of the school board members of “willful misconduct.” That accusation is not a criminal charge or indictment, but it will lead to a jury trial in Superior Court with the district attorney’s office handling the prosecution. If the jury unanimously finds the board members guilty, the judge must remove them from their office, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Martin Engquist.

Required to Check Contracts

The grand jury action accuses the school board members of not checking contracts and other money matters as required by state law. The panel charged that such alleged negligence allowed a district employee, former maintenance supervisor Steven Presson, to rig bids in order to get kickbacks.

On March 25, the grand jury indicted Presson, his wife, Diane Elizabeth Presson, and two Orange contractors, William A. Gustafson and Ronald Brock, who did business with the district, on charges of conspiracy to misappropriate public funds. They have not yet come to trial.

The district attorney’s office said this week that the investigation within the district is continuing under Engquist’s direction “and no end is in sight.”

Engquist on Tuesday credited Brummel with being the first person to alert police about possible fraud in the school district.

But in the interview at his home Thursday, Brummel repeatedly tried to play down his role in launching the outside investigation of the district’s tangled affairs. “That was just one small thing,” he said. “I am more proud of some of the school programs I started as superintendent.”

Brummel said those programs included “reducing class sizes in early elementary grades and in secondary English and science classes.”

Recalls Angry Parents

He declined to speculate on why the school board didn’t want him to stay on as superintendent. But he acknowledged that many residents of Orange Unified became angry when he sought to close four schools in a budget-cutting move. Many of Brummel’s critics have said that such proposals angered teachers and residents and ultimately prompted the board to remove him.

Friends of Brummel, however, have claimed that he was targeted for removal as soon as he went to the police about suspected fraud in the district.

Brummel, who has a doctorate in school administration from Columbia University, was superintendent of schools in Grosse Pointe, Mich., before coming to Orange Unified on July 1, 1984.

He said that while he enjoys working in his consultant’s role, “it’s not inconceivable that someday I’ll want to return to school administration, possibly as a superintendent.” His new consulting business helps school boards and parents form lists of desired legislation, and then he and Wilson draft political-action plans showing the school district how best to focus pressure on Sacramento to get such legislation passed.

Asked if he believes that the actions of the district attorney’s office and the grand jury this year have, in effect, vindicated him, Brummel indicated that he didn’t view it in that light. “What I really feel is sadness,” he said. “Orange Unified is a good school district, with good teachers and staff. It’s sad to see something like this happen.”