Trustees

Reform Progress at CUSD

Column: August 2010, Larry Christensen, Trabuco Canyon News At first glance one might wonder if the reform Board of Trustees at Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) has affected any change at the troubled district. The original “ABC” slate comprised of Addonizio, Bryson and Christensen were handily elected four years ago come November. One year later a successful recall installed Palazzo and Maddox and in the subsequent year Winston and Brick were elected to posts. Within a two-year span all seven long-termed trustees under the regime of the now indicted superintendent James Fleming had been removed. Two decades of misappropriation of funding, nepotism, favoritism, creation of “enemy lists” and extravagant deficit spending was too much for the public to bear...

Most O.C. districts pay trustees less than allowed

Fermin Leal, The Orange County Register Orange Unified trustees are trimming their stipends by 10 percent next year, Capistrano cut their compensation in half and two districts don't pay their trustees anything at all. On the other hand, school board pay has risen at least 20 percent since 2004-05 at Centralia, Fullerton Joint Union, the O.C. Dept. of Education and Magnolia school districts. So goes the hodge-podge of pay practices at Orange County's 28 school boards, where just over 150 trustees in 2008-09 earned just over $753,000 – a figure that has changed little in five years … Capistrano Unified had the steepest decrease in compensation countywide since 2004-05 after trustees voted two years ago to cut their pay in half, to $4,500 annually…