Orange Schools Choose Analyst

Hoping to get a clearer picture of the school district’s finances, Orange Unified’s board voted in a special meeting Monday to hire a business consultant.

“For some years now, there’s been arguments with regard to how much money the district really has,” board President Robert Viviano said after the unanimous vote. As the district enters salary negotiations with the teachers union, he said, “We’re trying to come to an agreement and understanding with regard to the amounts of money available for salary increases.”

Monday’s meeting, the fourth special session since the new board majority took power in July after a bitterly fought recall campaign, drew criticism from those who see the sessions as an attempt to put reforms on a fast track before the November election.

“They hold special meetings for things that are not emergencies,” Mark Bucher, a former attorney for the district and a critic of the new board, said before the meeting. “I guess they got a lot of changes they want to make, and they want to hire a consultant to validate their changes.”

Viviano denied the new board is in a rush.

“This is a business matter,” he said. “And will be conducted in a businesslike manner.”

The board voted 6-0, with trustee Bill Lewis absent, to contract with Olav Sorenson, an assistant professor at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, for $32,000.

Sorenson will analyze the district’s budget and its operations and file a report by Oct. 11. The report will be used by the board in calculating salaries for teachers and other staff during labor negotiations to begin shortly.

Teachers’ salary and benefits have been a sore point at the district for years and one of the major issues that prompted the recall.

In late June, voters in the 30,000-student district recalled trustees Linda Davis, Martin Jacobson and Maureen Aschoff and replaced them with union-backed candidates Kathy Moffat, Melissa Taylor Smith and John Ortega.

District teachers had long criticized the old board for focusing on ideological and political battles such as gay student clubs and bilingual education rather than teacher salaries, which are among the lowest in Orange County.

The old board maintained the salaries were competitive and necessary to keep the district fiscally solvent.

Along with Viviano and Lewis, the new board members now make up a majority of the seven-member panel, but the upcoming Nov. 6 election could change the composition of the controversial panel yet again.

Two in the new majority, Moffat and Smith, will face challengers including recalled trustees Davis and Jacobson. Two members of the old board, Terri Sargeant and Kathy Ward, also are up for election.

On Monday, Sargeant and Ward voted for Sorenson’s hiring but were critical of Viviano’s practice of calling special sessions.

“With good planning you can avoid special meetings,” said Sargeant, who said she voted for hiring the consultant nonetheless because of staff recommendation.