A state legislative committee has authorized an audit of the Orange County Board of Education pertaining to the panel’s charter school approvals, recommendations to reopen schools during the pandemic and lawsuits against the state and the board’s own department.

But, even as plans move forward, the conservative-majority county board is preparing its defense, contending the audit request “lacks a sufficient factual basis” and appears politically motivated.

Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) announced last week his bid to have the California state auditor’s office review the board’s governance practices, litigation history and use of taxpayer funds was approved by the state’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) following a March 23 review hearing.

In an interview Thursday, Umberg said the move is about ensuring transparency and good stewardship of taxpayer funds.

“Some of the things [the board] has done seem to be done not in the interest of educating people but more in the interest of promoting a particular ideology,” he said.

“Such incidents and actions, especially the litigation between the board and the [education department] superintendent, that is really irksome to me. Every dollar spent on that is a dollar taken away from educating kids in Orange County.”

The senator cited “controversial” approvals of charter school petitions opposed by the districts of jurisdiction and a series of board-initiated lawsuits against Orange County Department of Education Supt. Al Mijares over budget proceedings and the appointment of a legal representative as incidents worthy of further scrutiny.

Board President Mari Barke acknowledged the panel’s charter friendly stance (the board has approved 33 charter school petitions) but said only one of those decisions had been publicly challenged.

She further questioned the wisdom of an audit into an alleged misuse of taxpayer funding whose estimated cost has been placed at $839,600 and which will require nearly 4,200 hours of staff time.

“There are a lot of things we could do with those dollars besides come after a board that’s had no complaints,” she said Friday.

Another focus of the audit will be a series of recommendations the board made in July 2020 to return pupils to school campuses without a mask mandate, which flew in the face of state guidelines initiated by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Two months later, an attorney representing the Board of Education on a pro bono basis, sought to have the state Supreme Court revoke Newsom’s emergency order keeping schools shuttered during the 2020-21 academic year. When that failed, the board sued Newsom over keeping the order in place, even as facilities began to reopen.

Umberg said Thursday that while the attorney may have represented the board at no cost, such litigation costs taxpayers at multiple levels, in terms of judicial and court hours and in defense of lawsuits not central to the education of students.

“During the pandemic, the board seemed to be more interested in political action than educating young people,” he said. “The whole purpose of doing an audit is to do an examination and see if there’s any there there. If it turns out there’s no issue, there’s no issue.”

San Francisco attorney Gregory Rolen, who serves as general counsel for the board and the county ed department, challenged Umberg’s assertions in a March 17 letter to Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena), chair of the legislative committee.

“The Board has the right to initiate, defend or participate in litigation,” Rolen wrote. “The Board has received no complaints, nor has any misconduct been alleged in the last five years of public comment.”

Andy Thorburn, founder of the Contemporary Policy Institute, an education advocacy group that defends public schools and teachers through fact-based analysis, testified in support of the audit in a March 23 hearing of the 14-member bipartisan Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

He said he’s witnessed controversial acts and decisions on the part of the Orange County Board of Education, which has historically granted broad powers to charter schools without much explanation.

Thorburn, who in 2020 made an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the board, also questions its members having authorized spending at least $8.7 million on outside attorneys instead of OCDE’s legal counsel, and believes an audit will help shed light on those actions.

“We understand the charter situation is very contentious across the state, but in Orange County they seem to approach it without any critique or facts,” he said Wednesday.

“The question is, ‘Why are you doing these things?’ I hope an audit will show, in a detailed way, how they came to the decisions they came to.”

Barke said the board would comply with any recommendations that might arise from the audit process but expressed confidence in the panel’s actions and policies to date.

“If they have things we need to do, we will absolutely do it,” she said. “They’re going to have to dig really deep to find anything.”

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