Letter to the Editor:
At the Burbank Unified School District (BUSD) Board of Education meeting this evening Robert Bowne (former School Board Member and President from 1979-1984 and former City of Burbank Council Member and Mayor from 1984-1993) read an open letter written to the current Board of Education and signed by twelve former members of the BUSD Board of Education registering their concerns about the ongoing scandal and fiscal mismanagement of BUSD. Please see the full letter below.
On June 4, 2025, BUSD revealed that sitting Board of Education member Charlene Tabet was involved in an alleged $93,000 conflict-of-interest scheme involving her daughter, BreeAnn Weist, and is now under criminal investigation. Superintendent John Paramo immediately resigned.
As a result of this, community members discovered that there are no minutes for the past eighteen months of Board of Education Meetings. There is no public record of the board’s actions, no legal record of the decisions of the Board of Education for most of 2024 and all of 2025. This is a violation of the California Brown Act, CA Education Codes 35163 and 35143, and several BUSD Board Policies.
In addition, BUSD has spent over $30 million in bond funds without installing the legally required Schools Facilities Oversight Committee (SFOC) for the measure ABC Bond approved by the voters in November 2024. This spending is unethical, and because of the Board’s failure, is subject to legal challenge. California State law AB 1908 mandates in Chapter 1.5, titled ‘STRICT ACCOUNTABILITY IN LOCAL SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND ACT OF 2000,” Article 1. Section 15264 (b) that “Taxpayers directly participate in the oversight of bond expenditures.”
Dear Burbank Board of Education Members,
As former members of the Burbank Board of Education, we are watching the proceedings of the district with profound disappointment. With 98 years of collective experience spanning four decades of BUSD history, we have a deep understanding of the depth and breadth of commitment of time, talent, resources, and personal sacrifice that is required to serve as Trustees of this district.
Historically, Burbank Unified School District Board Members have attended trainings provided by the California School Boards Association (CSBA) and the District’s own Board Policies require Board of Education Members to complete the Masters in Governance training provided by CSBA. In addition, CSBA has numerous online resources designed to help trustees learn both their role and their responsibilities in overseeing the critical work the community has entrusted them with. Chief among these resources are the California School Boards Association’s Professional Governance Standards, a set of principles and practices designed to help boards of education govern effectively. These standards, embedded into Board Bylaw 9005, aim to enhance public understanding of board responsibilities, support boards in their work and promote a strong governance team focused on student learning.
The following concepts are drawn from CSBA’s Professional Governance Standards (www.csba.org).
Individual board members must be leaders of the community and role models for students. They must make professional development a priority and they must commit the time and energy necessary to be informed and effective decision makers.
The Board as a whole must have a unity of purpose and operate openly, with trust and integrity. The Board must govern in a dignified and professional manner, treating everyone with civility and respect, both from the dais and in other community communications. Most of all the Board must take collective responsibility for the Board’s performance.
During our times as Board Members, we were constantly aware of the critical need for vigilance as stewards of the district’s funds, especially during times of extreme financial crisis which each of us experienced over the terms we served. We also remained mindful of the enormous responsibility of maintaining the trust of the community.
Therefore, it is with tremendous sadness that we are witnessing the evaporation and destruction of public trust which took decades of care and stewardship to build and will take years to repair.
We respectfully suggest that the Board take the following steps:
- Listen to the public input with a willingness to learn.
- Ask for help and guidance from seasoned leaders throughout the community.
- Immediately establish a Budget Advisory Committee made up of community financial professionals.
- Immediately establish an action plan to demonstrate adherence to the Professional Governance Standards as prescribed in Board Bylaw 9005, originally adopted in 2006.
- Immediately establish and commit to an action plan for board member education with timelines for completion in accordance with Board Bylaw 9240.
- Schedule a Board Goal Setting workshop to be held in the open and televised/live streamed as soon as possible in accordance with Board Bylaw 9000, “Role of the Board.”
- Conduct a board self-evaluation in order to demonstrate accountability to the community, in accordance with Board Bylaw 9400.
It is our hope that you will be able to begin to rebuild the necessary public trust required to be the leaders the community members and students of the Burbank Unified School District deserve.
Signed,
Robert Bowne 1979-1984
Elena Hubbell 1991-2003
Denise Wilcox 1993-1997
Mike McDonald 1995-2003
Richard Raad 1999-2003
Dave Kemp 2003-2015
Debbie Kukta 2005-2012
Larry Applebaum 2005-2017
John Dilibert 2006-2007 and 2012-2013
Roberta Reynolds 2007-2020
Steve Ferguson 2015-2024
Steve Frintner 2017-2022
Linda Walmsey
Burbank
