IPC Declared "Discontinued" by Private Law Firm as PTN Emerges
- Jun 20
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 22
But Did Participating Public Agencies Ever Vote to Terminate the IPC Agreement?
PTN, or the Inland Empire Personnel Training Network, is a newly created private association introduced by the law firm Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo (AALRR) shortly after IPC was declared "discontinued" by that same law firm.
Before discussing PTN, however, a more fundamental question remains unanswered: who had the authority to discontinue IPC in the first place, and was that authority exercised pursuant to IPC's Joint Powers Agreement, bylaws, and contracts?
IPC's governing documents distinguish between an individual agency withdrawing from participation and termination of the Agreement for Special Services. A single district may withdraw through board action and written notice to the two County Superintendents serving as Executive Officers, Ted Alejandre and Edwin Gomez.
Termination of the IPC Agreement for Special Services, however, requires collective action by the participating agencies. The bylaws require: (1) written notice verifying that "a majority of all Council members" have elected to terminate the Agreement for Special Services, and (2) copies of the individual governing-board actions seeking termination of the agreement.
To date, the only publicly identified withdrawal appears to be Temecula Valley Unified School District. No public record has been identified showing that a majority of Council member governing boards voted to terminate the IPC Agreement for Special Services before IPC was declared "discontinued" by a consultant to the vendor law firm.
“Auto Renewal” Clause Keeps IPC Going Without Formal Termination
The timing raises an additional question. The current IPC Agreement for Special Services does not simply expire on June 30, 2026. The agreement expressly provides that it "shall renew automatically each fiscal year thereafter under the same terms and conditions" unless terminated pursuant to its termination provisions.
Those provisions require written notice verifying that a majority of all Council member governing boards have elected to terminate the agreement.
Yet IPC was declared "discontinued" on May 7, 2026—before the June 30 term date—and no public record has been identified showing that the required majority vote to terminate the Agreement for Special Services occurred. If such action occurred, when did it occur, and where is the documentation verifying that the contractual termination requirements were satisfied?
More importantly, public records indicate that several participating agencies never considered or voted on IPC's termination before it was declared "discontinued," including the Riverside County Board of Education and the San Bernardino County Board of Education, both of which are members of IPC.
Nevertheless, on May 7, 2026, IPC was declared "discontinued" through a communication authored by Jeff Malan, an AALRR consultant. The announcement was not accompanied by any documentation of the votes needed of the participating agencies, any public ratification process, or any explanation regarding how the termination provisions of the Agreement for Special Services had been satisfied.
This distinction is critical. AALRR is free to create a private association, offer training programs, or develop new services for its clients. A vendor law firm may decide whether it wishes to continue providing services.
The decision to terminate or modify agreements among the participating public agencies, however, belongs to the parties to those agreements - not a 3rd party vendor. To date, no public record has been identified showing that the participating agencies collectively exercised that authority.
If IPC was never formally dissolved pursuant to its governing documents, the obvious question becomes whether participating agencies remain subject to the Joint Powers Agreement while simultaneously being asked to participate in PTN through separate AALRR contractual arrangements. That raises additional questions regarding whether agencies could ultimately be paying for substantially similar services through two separate structures.
AALRR Announced and Defended Major Changes to IPC Outside the Public Process
Throughout the spring of 2026, the most significant communications regarding IPC's future came not through public meetings, board discussions, or votes of participating agencies, but through correspondence authored by AALRR attorneys and consultants and directed primarily to select superintendents and administrators.
On March 14, concerns regarding IPC's governance, authority, and structure were raised publicly in an article published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel. On March 20, four AALRR attorneys issued a lengthy defense of IPC, characterizing it largely as a training consortium and assuring recipients that concerns regarding governance and authority were based on misunderstandings.
On May 7, Jeff Malan, an AALRR consultant, announced that IPC would be "discontinued" and replaced with a new structure. This communication came to public attention only after a handful of board members mentioned during public meetings that they had received it from their superintendents.
Just days later, Malan responded to questions from a governing-board member by characterizing public concerns as a "false narrative," dismissing questions as "some sort of government conspiracy which simply does not exist," claiming concerns were "fueled only by speculation and a political agenda," and complaining that districts were being "bombard[ed]" with public-records requests and other inquiries. This communication was discovered through a Public Records Act request and was never presented at a public meeting.
Most notably, Malan directly attributed IPC's discontinuation to public criticism, stating that "to avoid the nuisance of the continuing unwarranted social media attacks, we have concluded that it is best to wind down the Inland Personnel Council in its present form."
Malan does not elaborate on who “we” references. But considering that he is a consultant to a law firm, he appeared to be speaking on behalf of AALRR.
One observer expressed concern over the lack of due diligence of board members, stating:
"How is it possible that elected officials just take the word of a random contractor with a law firm that he has the sole power to dismantle and reconstruct a Joint Powers Agreement between dozens of public agencies? Are these board members asking any questions or checking their own records to see if they or other districts really voted to terminate IPC? Or are they just accepting the word of an individual stranger that IPC had to be shut down because of criticism and questions from the public? Where is the common sense and due diligence of these elected officials?"
None of these major communications affecting the future of IPC appear to have been accompanied by public discussion before the San Bernardino County Board of Education, the Riverside County Board of Education, or the governing boards of the participating agencies. Instead, the defense of IPC, the announcement of its discontinuation, and the explanation for that decision were communicated largely through correspondence between AALRR and administrators rather than through public meetings where elected officials and taxpayers could ask questions, or provide input.
The problem is not whether IPC could have or should have been discontinued. The problem is why a private law firm appears to have made that determination for dozens of public agencies engaged in a Joint Powers Agreement, outside public view and even outside the view of elected school boards.
AALRR Introduces “PTN” Shortly After Declaring IPC “discontinued”
The Inland Personnel Council ("IPC") was reportedly "discontinued" in May 2026. Yet many of the same programs and services now appear to be continuing through a newly created organization known as the Inland Empire Personnel Training Network ("PTN").
According to documents presented to the Alta Loma School District governing board in June, PTN is described as a "proprietary enterprise of AALRR" and a "voluntary private association" of school districts. Participating agencies receive personnel and labor-relations training, professional resources, networking opportunities, and discounted legal-services rates through AALRR – all almost identical services to what was offered through IPC.
What appears to have changed most significantly is not the services being provided, but the structure through which they are provided.
A Private Association Tied to Legal Services
PTN is described as a “private association,” yet it was labeled a “supplement to” AALRR's legal-services agreements and continues to offer discounted legal-services rates through the firm. This again intertwines membership with the legal-services contract—one of the primary criticisms of the IPC agreements.
If PTN is simply a private training and networking association, why is it directly connected to legal-services contracts? Where is the line between association activities and legal representation?
Those questions are particularly significant because IPC was never limited to training and networking. From its earliest bylaws, IPC was created to provide expert legal advice and personnel-relations services to participating agencies. More recent agreements continued those functions while also including investigations, post-investigation services, arbitration support, labor-relations consulting, and access to non-attorney consultants.
Questions therefore remain regarding how those functions will operate under PTN, what oversight exists, and how employee information may be collected, stored, accessed, or shared through vendor-controlled systems.
The Services Remain. The Governance Does Not.
One of the most striking aspects of PTN is that many of the same services continue, while the governance structure associated with IPC appears to have disappeared.
IPC purported to operate through Executive Officers, an Advisory Committee, interagency agreements, bylaws, and a governance framework involving participating public agencies, although whether those oversight mechanisms were properly exercised has been the subject of significant public debate.
PTN, by contrast, is described as a proprietary enterprise of AALRR and a voluntary private association. The County Superintendents who reportedly concurred with the restructuring do not appear to have any formal role within the PTN agreement itself. Instead, AALRR retains broad authority regarding PTN's programs, services, schedules, and offerings.
As a practical matter, many of the same services continue, but the structure has shifted from a Joint Powers Agreement among public agencies to a private association operated by the vendor itself. That raises an obvious question: what public oversight, if any, was lost in the transition?
The Accountability Questions Remain
For approximately 46 years, public agencies paid IPC dues and public funds flowed through the joint powers agreement, and only after public discovery and scrutiny was it announced by AALRR that IPC was “discontinued.”
This raises multiple questions:
1) If IPC was not formally dissolved pursuant to its governing documents, are public funds still going to IPC? Who authorized the AALRR announcement from Jeff Malan of a “discontinuation” of this joint powers agreement and what government authority supported it? What role did public officials play in this communication and did they receive this announcement directly from Malan? And why was the public never given an opportunity to participate in the discussion?
2) Whether or not IPC was terminated pursuant to the bylaws and contracts, the public deserves answers as to how IPC was set up with the “auto renewal” clauses leading to lack of transparency even to school boards, how money was funneled to AALRR/IPC without the knowledge or approval of current boards, how the governance structure was supposed to work and why it was not apparently in operation, how and why investigations and other services were added without public input, and how personnel information was shared via the IPC portal. These are all questions that still need to be answered to ensure another mechanism for secretly funneling taxpayer dollars never occurs again.
3) Has a Joint Powers Agreement among public agencies effectively been replaced by a private association created and controlled by the vendor law firm, AALRR, and if so, what public oversight was lost in that transition? Have the public agencies even expressed a need for this type of service, or is this completely initiated by AALRR? Why is this “private association” for training again so intricately tied to the AALRR legal services contracts and what are the potential problems and issues with that intertwining? What other law firms are these public agencies considering, and have they done their due diligence in performing a true cost/benefit analysis to ensure appropriate use of taxpayer funds? Or, are governing board members simply approving all contracts put before them without any thought, discussion, and public input?
A declaration by a consultant to the vendor law firm that IPC had been "discontinued" does not constitute a formal dissolution of a cross-county Joint Powers Agreement involving approximately 64 public agencies. The withdrawal and termination procedures are spelled out in the IPC bylaws and contracts, and no public record has been identified showing that those procedures were followed or that the public - or even governing boards - participated in this decision.
Whether PTN ultimately proves to be substantially different from IPC remains to be seen. What is clear is that many of the same services, many of the same participants, and many of the same vendor relationships continue today under a new name while significant questions regarding authority, governance, oversight, and public accountability remain unanswered.
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