Q & A : Irvine School District President Tom Burnham

Tom Burnham became president of the Irvine Unified School District’s board on Dec. 6, 1994--the day Orange County filed for bankruptcy. The school district had $107 million in the failed county investment fund, half of which had been borrowed six months earlier to put in the pool. The district lost an estimated $10 million and was forced to lay off 40 employees. Burnham, 41, vice president of human resources at Allergan Inc., spoke with Times correspondent Russ Loar about his one-year term as president, which ends today.

Q: You became school board president only a few hours after the county declared bankruptcy. What were the most immediate challenges?

A: We were without a superintendent. Dave Brown had resigned, and we had this huge leadership void. Hank Adler was just elected to the board, and he was not supported by the majority. So between our leadership void and concerns about board relationships, I was a bit overwhelmed.

Q: Yet you say board members were able to set politics aside and work together to head off the threat of disaster to the school district. How did that happen?

A: We basically just went to work. Within two weeks, we had moved very quickly to implement a broad range of strategies. We decided that we must be open with the media and the community and that we’d get the community involved in the process. We went out and hired the best bankruptcy attorney in the county and implemented an immediate hiring and spending freeze. Hank Adler provided the cornerstone that was accepted by the board, that we would plan for the worst and hope for the best.

Q: Members of the Irvine City Council who approved a similar plan to borrow money to make an additional investment in the county pool were targeted for recall and personal attack. Why did the school board escape that kind of criticism?

A: The actions of that recall committee could certainly have been taken against my fellow trustees, but they made a political judgment to go against City Hall. That’s why I was so disgusted with the whole recall effort.

Q: The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the decision by Irvine Unified, the city of Irvine and three other county education agencies to borrow funds to invest in the pool. How could this affect the school district?

A: There will be no financial consequences, to my knowledge. To me, it’s more of a public censure in relation to some of the financial activities that we should have been more cautious with. What it does say to me is that our administrators need to manage the district within its own financial means. When we look to speculative ventures to meet the district’s operating requirements, that’s not in keeping with the public trust.