Education Department ‘Contracts’ Draw Fire

Orange County’s financially troubled Department of Education drew fire Wednesday from a former employee who accused the department of reneging on pay contracts and then destroying the documents. Department officials denied the accusation.

James P. Aynes, who used to work as a staff attorney for the department, charged that management employees were put under individual contracts for increased pay starting in 1986. But Aynes said that when he inquired about the contracts earlier this year, he was told that the documents had never been implemented and had been destroyed.

Aynes charged that the disposal of the contracts might constitute illegal destruction of public records.

10 Unpaid Days

In an interview, Aynes also criticized the department for requiring about 140 of its management employees this year to take up to 10 unpaid days off to help the department’s budget. Aynes said the budgetary actions were among the reasons he resigned from the department earlier this month.

Supt. Robert Peterson, an elected official who heads the 800-employee county department, denied Aynes’ charges.

Peterson said no “contracts” ever existed such as Aynes described. The superintendent also defended the unpaid days off required this fiscal year of the 140 management employees.

Peterson, who makes $96,000 a year, acknowledged that he is not among those required to take unpaid days off, but he said he will give up about $2,000 in other ways to help the department budget.

Peterson said low state financing is the reason his department, which provides schooling for about 10% of the county’s handicapped children, is suffering a budget crunch. So far, he said, his department has only had three layoffs.

Aynes resigned from the county Department of Education earlier this month to accept a position as a deputy attorney in the Huntington Beach city attorney’s office.

“I had a problem with the decision (to take unpaid days off) because basically I saw it as a layoff,” Aynes said. He added that he thought the move violated “contracts” the department gave him and about 35 other management employees in 1986.

Peterson said that in 1986, he authorized “arrangements” with management personnel in the event that a ballot issue, Proposition 61, passed. The proposition would have imposed ceilings on salaries. Department officials were concerned that management employees would quit rather than take pay cuts.

‘Arrangements’ Unsigned

Peterson said the “arrangements” never were actual contracts with the management employees. “I did not sign them,” he said. When the issue failed, Peterson said the department discarded the proposed contracts.

Aynes, however, said he and other management employees signed actual contracts for yearly pay. He said it was not until July that he heard that the contracts “had been disposed of.”

Aynes said that if the department disposed of the documents, legal questions might be raised about destruction of public documents. Peterson said, however, that “they were not public records because they were never implemented. It was a working, scratch-paper item.”