It seems to me that some of us may have lost sight of the reasons for needing to establish public and School District safeguards over School Board members' District-paid compensation and reimbursements.
A majority of the community probably doesn't even remember or have a clue why this issue is even being discussed — or why this accountability is still needed.
It is probably partly my fault by not keeping the next generation of parents informed about the problem. These new, involved parents probably see me just as some old fuddy-dud fighting a Battle of Wills over what seems, to them, to be just an obscure and inane policy.
Over six years ago, I discovered, by chance, that the District had been overpaying for some Board members' healthcare insurance for years.
One Board member’s insurance had been overpaid for eight-straight years.
I saw the previously accepted honor system that may have worked in the past without any public or Board member knowledge and little, if any District oversight. The system was not working. Clearly, it needed to be changed.
Recent tongue in cheek, apologies by School Board members for having bought a can of soda pop from the District vending machine, or insisting on declaring the value of a Polo shirt, trivializes this still serious matter to the almost absurd level of a Samuel Beckett play. “Shall we go?”
This never was about buying soda pop.
Perspective and Context
It has always been about the loss of nearly $60,000 in District funds, verified a year later by an official investigation by the L.A. County D.A.'s Office of Integrity in 2005.
It was fortunate for the three offending members of this “Sthealth Care Trio,” as I called them, that the D.A. was able to find the impersonal CCUSD at fault, not Board members, for their own overly-indulgent, personal choices in their District-paid medical insurance coverage.
Even though, at the time, 2 members, Jessica Beagle-Roos and Saundra Davis, wanted public transparency, there was not much they could do, being a minority. There was a 3-member majority who felt it was not in their best interests to have their District-paid compensation shown to the public, especially since it was so close to re-election bids for two of them in 2003. To have these members put their own re-elections, first and foremost, over the public's right to know, and by denying the timely disclosure of the facts in the matter, was, and still is, shocking to me.
Why did it take over 6 years for this to come about?
It's simple: By withholding the truth from the public before the 2003 elections, an ill-informed electorate returned both of these still-offending incumbents to office.
This re-joined majority was able to thwart any calls for Board accountability by leaving them unaddressed the next 4 years.
The majority shirked their ethical responsibility to the community. They left it up to this current Board to bear the burden of writing and passing these needed safeguards.
I hope the Board did not pass this Board policy just to indulge “Mr. Laase” or just to get it off the Agenda and out of their hair.
I hope they passed it because it was the right thing to do, just as it was 6 years ago.
George Laase may be contacted at Gmlaase@aol.com
