The Orange County Board of Education\u2019s attempt to reframe a state audit as a political attack centered on charter schools is misleading. It is a textbook example of a distraction.<\/p>\n
The op-ed titled \u201cThe Process is the Punishment: Sacramento\u2019s War on Orange County<\/a>\u201d by Will Swaim would have readers believe this audit is about ideology. It is not. It is about accountability, specifically governance, litigation practices and the use of taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n And the more the Board tries to narrow the conversation to charter schools, the clearer it becomes: they would prefer not to talk about their irresponsible and wasteful use of taxpayer money.\u00a0<\/p>\n If the Board is confident that the audit will reveal nothing improper, then why the aggressive effort to discredit it before it even begins?<\/p>\n For years, the Board has engaged in a pattern of costly, often unsuccessful litigation at taxpayer expense.<\/p>\n In 2018, the Board sued its own County Superintendent over control of legal counsel, a dispute that dragged on for years and ultimately resulted in approximately $3 million in taxpayer-funded legal costs (Voice of OC<\/a>).<\/p>\n In 2019, it went back to court, filing a writ of mandate against the County Superintendent and State Superintendent over authority to alter and approve the county education budget before submission to the state, a case it would ultimately lose in 2022 (OC Register<\/a>).<\/p>\n In 2022, the pattern escalated further. The Board sued the Orange County Committee on School District Organization and the Orange County Registrar of Voters over who had authority to draw election maps, a case that was ultimately dismissed after prolonged litigation (Voice of OC<\/a>). That same year, it was also sued over its decision to reappoint one of its own members after a resignation (Voice of OC<\/a>).<\/p>\n In 2024, the Board filed yet another lawsuit against the Orange County Department of Education, seeking to compel records related to legal spending, according to Orange County Superior Court filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n These are not isolated incidents. They are a documented pattern of decisions that expose taxpayers to unnecessary legal costs and raise serious questions about judgment and governance.<\/p>\n The real distraction is not the audit, but the extraordinary lengths the Board will go to avoid accountability, raising a broader question about whether public resources are being used responsibly and in the best interest of Orange County students and families.<\/p>\n Taxpayers deserve transparency, and an independent audit is a basic function of good government.\u00a0<\/p>\n If there is nothing to hide, there should be nothing to fear, and the Board should welcome the audit rather than attempt to distract from it.<\/p>\n Tom Umberg represents California\u2019s 34th Senate District.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orange County Board of Education\u2019s attempt to reframe a state audit as a political attack centered on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,964,975],"class_list":["post-270334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-commentary","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}