ORANGE : School Board Votes to Hire an Auditor

The Orange Unified School District, still dogged by the shadow of a multimillion-dollar bid-rigging scandal uncovered several years ago, decided Thursday night to hire an internal auditor to investigate any allegations of wrongdoing in the district.

The school board authorized spending up to $80,000 on the independent auditor. The auditor will report directly to the seven-member school board and not to the superintendent, an arrangement designed to try to restore credibility to the district, according to board president Sandy Englander.

She said the auditor’s duties will not be limited to investigating fiscal irregularities.

“They will look into anything we (board members) want,” Englander said.

Three board members were accused by the 1986-87 Orange County Grand Jury of failing to supervise school district business adequately, thus allowing a contract bid-rigging scandal to take place in the early 1980s.

The three are Joe Cherry, Ruth Evans and Robert J. Elliott. Their case is pending before Superior Court. The other four trustees, including Englander, were not on the board at the time.

According to the grand jury and court documents, a school district employee in the early 1980s set up a scheme to rig school repair and construction contracts. The court documents alleged that millions of dollars in contracts went to selected contractors, who in turn gave kickbacks and other favors to the employee and his wife.