Letter to the Editor:
During their continuing public discussions about the Tabet embezzlement scandal, members of the BUSD Board of Education have shown a willingness to attack distinguished members of the community who wish to hold them responsible for this scandal. We also hear repeatedly that they have the right to rely on information given to them and they can’t “google every company” that has a proposed contract with BUSD. These arguments would make sense … except for something that the Board seemingly has failed to address. There is an important legal concept that applies here.
Every Board – corporate, nonprofit and, yes, school district – has a legal and non-negotiable fiduciary duty to protect the interests of those they represent. We the public place our trust in those we elect to the School Board to protect the assets of BUSD and perform oversight. That trust is the foundation for this fiduciary duty. A Board of Trustees can be sued for the breach of fiduciary duty. Not the superintendent, not employees – the Board itself which is the group that has agreed to take on this fiduciary duty by running for and being elected to the Board.
Excuses can be given; Trustees can lash out at “those on Facebook” and residents who express their anger and they can blame others for this mess. In a sense, these reactions are understandable when one feels helpless against this growing tide of community outrage. But the bottom line is that because of their fiduciary duty to both the school district and those who elected them, the responsibility lies, “the buck stops”, with the members and officers of the BUSD Board of Education.
In my career as an insurance claims manager, I handled lawsuits against Boards of Directors based on a breach of fiduciary duty. Individual Board members were named as defendants and could potentially be personally liable for damages based on their own conduct. There were cases where each member of the Board had to have their own personal attorney because blame was thrown at others around like rice on a wedding day. And these cases were not involving Boards where all their statements are captured on video and preserved like the BUSD Board. Our school board’s defensiveness may come back to haunt them.
No one knows at this time what the result will be of this now apparent corrupt behavior within our school district. But our elected officials on the Board of Education need to understand that, as hard as they try to wriggle away from this situation, their fiduciary duty is non-transferrable. And rather than continue to lash out at people’s justified outrage, perhaps they should seek some legal counsel in regard to their own potential personal liability and use that legal advice to guide their comments to the public.
Linda Bessin
Burbank
