Education Department Needs Efficiency Study

About 140 management employees of the Orange County Department of Education will lose thousands of dollars in income this fiscal year because they are being forced to take up to 10 days off--without pay--in order to cut spending and preserve the department’s dwindling reserve fund.

The pay cuts ordered by Robert Peterson, the elected county superintendent of schools, were disclosed just weeks after Peterson warned his staff that additional budget cuts may be required because of dwindling reserves. The problem is that the department for the last three years has been spending more money than it received, using its reserve fund to make up the difference.

This year, the kitty is dangerously close to falling below the state guideline that calls for maintaining a reserve fund equal to about 2% of the current budget. For the Orange County department’s budget of $50 million, that means a $1 million reserve. Just four fiscal years ago the department had $6.6 million in reserve. Now the reserve is barely over the minimum.

All of this raises the question of why the department has pursued the policy of deficit spending to the point that employees are being forced to lose salaries to keep the budget within fiscally acceptable bounds.

Peterson places the blame on the state, citing cutbacks in state financing of education as the main reason for the department’s budget problems. To some extent, that is no doubt accurate.

But how much, if at all, did Peterson’s management practices contribute to the problem? Did the department foolishly fund redundant or unnecessary programs? Did the Orange County Board of Education, which has little control over the elected superintendent except in budget authority, exert too little influence over the staff’s spending policies? In fairness to the public that foots the bill, those are questions that need to be answered.

Several past grand juries have been critical of the department’s spending policies, and one even questioned whether the department should continue to exist at all when its functions could easily be taken over by the state. Peterson has disputed the grand jury criticisms. But the current budget problems give strong support to previous grand jury recommendations for an outside management study. The president of the Grand Jurors’ Assn. of Orange County, which is composed of former members of county grand juries, has reiterated that recommendation. This time it should be taken seriously.

The county Board of Education, in response to recommendations from last year’s grand jury and a special committee appointed by the board, has put the question on the Nov. 8 ballot: Should the county superintendent’s job remain elective or be an appointive post?

A management study is now also in order, to determine how efficiently the department is being run, and, if possible, help bolster public confidence in its programs and spending policies.