To the Candidates for the Burbank Board of Education
Trustee-Area Elections · 2026
Dear Candidates for the Board of Education:
As you begin your campaign for Burbank Board of Education, you will likely be contacted by the Burbank Teachers Association and other organizations seeking to interview you or offer their endorsement. We would like to respectfully share our perspective as you consider those opportunities.
The Burbank Teachers Association represents many hardworking and dedicated teachers who deserve our respect and appreciation. Our concern is not with teachers. It is with maintaining the independence required of an elected member of the Board of Education.
For years, the public has been told, officially, by the Burbank Teachers Association that Burbank schools do not receive enough funding. We have published a detailed article at burbank.gop explaining our view that Burbank residents already contribute more than their fair share in education taxes, while California’s school-funding system redirects much of that revenue elsewhere. This is a long-standing problem that must be addressed right now in Sacramento rather than through repeated local tax increases, which are crushing to property owners and renters who ultimately pay those additional taxes, as well as to retailers who must absorb these taxes and pass them along at the point of sale.
The Burbank Teachers Association has supported multiple ballot measures that increase the financial burden on local property owners. We were particularly troubled by a mailer supporting Measure I, which suggested that Burbank residents were not contributing enough to public education. We retained copies of the mailers and would gladly share them with you.
We also believe school districts must be held accountable for how existing funds are managed. Over the years, taxpayers have seen substantial pay increases made to departing administrators, repeated superintendent turnover, costly personnel decisions, and other controversies. Members of the Board must be willing to examine these matters openly and objectively. In a dramatic example of a “tip of the iceberg” situation, former Burbank BUSD board member Charlene Tabet was charged with a felony in October 2025 for illegally awarding a $93,000 district contract to her relative’s company. The financial scandal and ensuing fallout also led to the abrupt resignation of Superintendent John Paramo, who continued to be paid after he left.
We have identified many ways for the school district to raise money without raising taxes and presented these ideas to the district on multiple occasions, and to our knowledge, not one of these ideas was deployed. Instead of appropriately managing existing funding and demanding that the funds we already pay go to our schools, the Burbank Teachers Association supports the easy route of promoting more and more taxes on property, and this is not right.
For that reason, we encourage you to think carefully before seeking or accepting an endorsement from an employee union whose compensation, benefits, staffing levels, and working conditions may come before you for a vote. Even when no explicit commitment is made, such an endorsement can create the appearance—or expectation—of an obligation.
Similar concerns arise at the municipal level when elected officials accept endorsements from employee unions and later face questions involving overtime, compensation, staffing, or workplace policies. Whether or not an endorsement actually affects a decision, the perception of influence can make meaningful oversight more difficult.
We are not telling you what to do, nor are we suggesting that you should not listen to teachers or meet with their representatives. Teachers deserve a meaningful voice in the future of our schools. We are simply asking you to consider whether accepting an institutional endorsement could affect—or appear to affect—your ability to make fully independent decisions.
With trustee-area elections, candidates now have a valuable opportunity to speak directly with a more manageable number of voters. You can build community support based on your own principles, experience, and plans for Burbank schools without becoming dependent upon an organization whose interests may later come before the Board. The need for seeking support from Burbank Teachers Association’s voting bloc is moot considering that by-area-district elections mean a much lower number of voters to persuade.
Ultimately, your responsibility will be to students, parents, taxpayers, teachers, and the entire community. We respectfully encourage you to preserve both the reality and the appearance of your independence.
Thank you for considering our perspective.
Respectfully,
The Burbank Republican Party