IRVINE : School Trustees May Reinstate $400 Stipend

Irvine Unified School District trustees are expected to consider reinstating their $400-a-month stipend, reduced to $100 a month in the aftermath of the county bankruptcy, at their meeting tonight.

Veteran Trustee Mary Ellen Hadley is expected to be named school board president when the district holds its annual organizational meeting.

Hadley, first elected to the school board in 1983, said she favors restoring the stipends because of the cost of being a school board member. “There’s no doubt about it, it costs you money to do this job,” Hadley said.

Hadley, regional director of the California School Boards Assn., will succeed Tom Burnham as board president. Burnham was named president at the school board meeting of last Dec. 6, the same day the county declared bankruptcy. Hadley, whose term expires next November, said she will not run for reelection.

Trustee Margie Wakeham, first elected in 1985, is the board’s second-most senior member. Wakeham also supports reinstatement of the $400 monthly stipend.

“I would not want anyone to decide not to run for election to the school board because they couldn’t afford it,” Wakeham said. “If a board member doesn’t want or need it, they can always give it to charity.”

But Burnham said reinstating the stipend would send the wrong message to the community in the wake of decisions to cut $2 million from the district budget and lay off 40 employees.

“The impacts of the bankruptcy on our district are not over,” Burnham said.