Bonus Pay for Principals to Get Tax Hike Alleged : Election: Investigators say Capistrano trustees OKd a secret incentive plan to build up vote on Measure A.

The Capistrano Unified School District approved a secret “bonus incentive plan” for its school principals who could produce in their areas the necessary two-thirds vote needed to approve a special tax, county prosecutors alleged in court Friday.

Prosecutors also produced documents showing that district officials kept the bonus plan hidden from them during an investigation last year into possible misuse of public funds in promoting Measure A, the May, 1989, districtwide ballot initiative. However, no charges have been filed in the case.

Measure A, which would have raised property taxes for new school construction, failed to get the required two-thirds vote it needed for passage, despite heavy political backing from the school district. The vote tally was 52.2% in favor to 47.8% opposed.

Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon on Friday ordered the Capistrano district to turn over to prosecutors all files related to its closed-door sessions for the first half of 1989. The judge also denied a request from the school district’s attorneys that all court records on the case be sealed from public view “because of the sensitive nature of the material.”

The records show that in September, 1989, district officials turned over to county prosecutors minutes of the March 6, 1989, closed-door session in which a consultant was hired for the Measure A special tax election. But it was not until February, 1990, after a persistent inquiry from Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade and his investigators, that a new set of minutes was sent to prosecutors.

The new set of minutes included the bonus payment plan, which was not detailed in minutes previously released to prosecutors. Wade said his office is investigating the discrepancy between the two documents.

The Capistrano district, the fifth largest in the county, covers San Juan Capistrano, Capistrano Beach, Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, San Clemente and Dana Point.

Wade said his office is not yet prepared to say whether the bonus plan was illegal. But he cited a state Education Code statute that prohibits “change in compensation” to school employees for purposes of influencing the outcome of an election.

“There is a general rule (in the state Education Code) that public funds should not be used for political purposes,” Wade said. “When we get a set of minutes that show one thing and a new set of minutes five months later showing bonuses we had not been told about, it certainly makes us want to take a hard look at what’s going on.”

Annette B. Gude, president of the district’s Board of Trustees, said Friday that the trustees had been advised by lawyers that the bonus plan was legal.

“We were told (the principals) could get involved because it was something to benefit the schools,” said Gude, who was not the board president at the time the bonus plan was approved.

According to court documents, the plan was approved at a closed-door session in which neither the minutes nor the votes taken were made public. Gude said the agenda for the closed session was cleared by district lawyers prior to the meeting.

Wade disagreed in court papers. “In the opinion of the district attorney’s office, the school board met on at least (these) closed-door-session items improperly,” he wrote.

District papers turned over to prosecutors also showed that school district Supt. Jerome R. Thornsley wrote to the trustees at the time: “If the board approves (the incentives), there would be strong admonishment (to the principals) not to make it a matter of public record.”

Thornsley also sought approval from the trustees to tell the school principals “that should the incentive-pay issue become public and cause any problem prior to the election, the follow-through would simply not take place (final board approval of the plan),” according to the court documents.

He added, “This would put the responsibility on each principal to keep the matter confidential.”

Thornsley was unavailable Friday for comment.

Wade said his office began investigating the election after some citizens complained about school officials pressuring them to vote yes on Measure A.

Gude said some principals did receive bonuses, but only for encouraging parents to vote in the election.

“Some principals worked very hard and put in extra time, and we felt they needed to be rewarded,” Gude said. “The stress was: It’s important for you to go out and vote.” Gude denied that principals were instructed to urge parents to vote yes.

However, the school district’s minutes from a March 6 closed-door session state that the trustees voted “unanimously to authorize the superintendent to recommend (principals) for incentive stipends during 1989 as a result of (them) achieving 66 2/3 ‘yes’ votes in their areas.”

Although the minutes do not specify the amount of the bonuses, district documents reveal that Thornsley recommended to the trustees that they either pay 5% of a principal’s annual salary or a flat fee of $2,500. Salaries of school principals countywide last year ranged from $38,300 to $65,400, according to the County Department of Education.

Wade said his investigation will try to determine whether the bonuses and fees paid to a consulting firm hired to promote the measure were legal. Investigators also will look into possible civil or criminal violations under the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act, which requires that trustees make public the results of voting held in closed session.

“We aren’t saying at this point that anyone has done anything criminally wrong,” Wade said. “It certainly appears there were some kind of violations of the Brown Act. But we’re still investigating.”

Michael McShane, a Sacramento attorney hired to represent the district, accused Wade in court papers of “pestering” the district for 17 months “in hopes of finding some evidence to support his theories.” McShane called Wade’s inquiry “a fishing expedition” and said there was no wrongdoing by district officials.

District President Gude said Friday that “all of this is just driving us up the wall. So far, they haven’t charged us with anything. We keep saying, ‘If you’ve got something, charge us with it.’ ”

Sheila Benecke, chairwoman of a political action committee formed to campaign for Measure A, said the PAC was formed because she understood that school employees could not work for the measure during regular working hours. But in the off-hours, she said, principals “have the right . . . to encourage people to vote yes.”

However, the issue is not the principals’ right to campaign, Wade said. The issue is whether the trustees had the right to spend public money to get them to do it.

Wade said that his investigation would not be taking so long had the district cooperated in the beginning. He pointed out in court papers that for months Thornsley and the district trustees refused to even be questioned on the issue.

In June, the school district’s lawyers informed Wade that they would not voluntarily turn over to his office the minutes and other memos related to closed-door sessions that he requested. Wade, in turn, sought a court order for those documents Friday.

While the bonuses may draw the most attention, the district attorney’s investigation goes to the general question of whether the district should have campaigned for the passage of Measure A.

In a letter to the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Thornsley insisted that the literature and other district efforts were only designed to get out the vote, not support a ‘yes’ vote.

But Wade said the literature contradicts that intention. He noted that the FPPC wrote back to Thornsley saying that most of the district’s money spent on the election should have been reported as political funds, which the district then filed.