Greater Orange News Service

School officials across Orange County are debating on whether to inform their staffs that the Orange County Register has requested and obtained all pay records for every school district in Orange County from the Orange County Department of Education. According to sources in the Orange County Department of Education, the request was at first denied. The sources state that Orange County Register then threatened legal action under the Freedom of Information Act and the Orange County Department of Education relinquished the records. What the Orange County Register will do with the information is unknown.

The Register has done front page stories on Orange County school districts superintendent’s pay, now however they have requested and received all pay records of every single employee of all public schools. Since pay rates and payroll budgets are widely and easily available, the request for such a massive amount of payroll data is perplexing. The most common reasoning among those who are discussing the Register payroll interest is that they are looking to compare top administers pay among Orange County districts.

Most recently the Register has focused on Capistrano Unified as the current poster child of dysfunction school government. With huge budget deficient plus labor and voter unrest, the paper often focuses educational stories on the south county district.