• Elected Member – Glendora School Board
• Small Business Owner – Ellenson Legal & Financial Services
• General Attorney – United States Department of the Treasury
• Adjunct Professor – Azusa Pacific University

Cory was born and raised in the East San Gabriel Valley. He attended public schools through the Glendora Unified School District, received his Bachelor of Science degree, with cum laude honors, from the USC Leventhal School of Accounting, and his Juris Doctor degree, with a specialization in tax law, from the UCLA School of Law. Prior to entering the workforce, Cory gained student-experience with Ernst & Young LLP, the California Department of Justice – Office of the Attorney General, and the United States Senate – Congressional Oversight Panel in Washington, DC.

As an elected member of the Glendora School Board, Cory partnered with Glendora Mayor Judy Nelson to create a mock city council program for 5th grade students to enhance their understanding of local government and civic responsibility, expanded and institutionalized a volunteer-based one-on-one reading intervention program to all elementary schools in the district, and connected a private donor with high school administrators for the purpose of creating the most comprehensive parent-student college counseling program of any public high school in the nation.

Additionally, Cory stressed the importance of all high school graduates being qualified for entry-level college English and math, secured comparative data with other high-achieving public school districts, and advocated for the expansion of the AVID college-prep elective to be available to all college-bound students. He regularly met with teachers union representatives and various community leaders, visited classrooms across the district, successfully advocated for all school board meeting videos to be made available online, and maintained an interactive and informative social media presence.

Most importantly, Cory worked hard to create and strengthen trade and vocational career pathways for non-college-bound students. Cory sees that our workforce is demanding these professionals, and that our students are hungry for these careers. He believes that it’s our responsibility to make students aware of these opportunities and to properly guide them along these pathways. He coordinated with the local ROP district and community colleges, advocated for a career planning elective course for trade and vocational students and enhanced marketing of these pathways, and arranged for the president of the American Welding Society to speak to all middle school and continuation high school students about trade and vocational careers.

As a former attorney for the United States Department of the Treasury, Cory fought daily for integrity and fairness in the application of our tax laws, to ensure justice and equity for all law-abiding American taxpayers. He was responsible for cases where individuals and corporations were caught lying and cheating on their tax returns, and cases in which high-priced lawyers and accountants were paid to exploit tax loopholes. He took these cases to trial, demanding that these individuals and corporations be held accountable to pay their fair share, and secured favorable rulings from the United States Tax Court every time.

As a small business owner of Ellenson Legal & Financial Services, Cory has taken his experience working for the federal government and put it to use helping the private sector navigate the tax controversy process. He specializes in representing individuals and businesses pursuant to IRS audits, appeals, and Tax Court proceedings. Cory helps his clients get relief from relentless tax collection actions like liens, levies, and garnishments, and with general civil, criminal, bankruptcy, and probate proceedings.

As an adjunct professor for Azusa Pacific University, Cory teaches within the School of Business and Management, in the L.P. & Timothy Leung School of Accounting. Cory teaches Advanced Business Law to students seeking their Master of Professional Accountancy degree. The course covers the legal environment of business, torts and crimes, contracts, sales and lease agreements, negotiable instruments, debtor-creditor relationships, employment relations, business organizations, and property law.

COMMUNITY SERVICE:

• Kiwanis Club of Glendora – Treasurer
• Glendora Friends of Rotary – Treasurer
• Glendora Masonic Lodge – Master
• Coordinated School Health Committee – Member
• Glendora Education Foundation – Member
• Barton Reading Program – Tutor
• Community Read-In Program – Reader
• Junior Achievement Business Skills Program – Teacher
• AVID College-Prep Elective – Presenter
• Glendora High School Interact Club – Mentor
• Glendora Chamber of Commerce Legislative Action Committee – Member
• Los Angeles County School Trustees Association – Member

BETTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Nationwide, California public schools are ranked 42nd in quality of education, near the bottom in both per-student funding student-teacher ratios, and we are failing to prepare students for trade and vocational careers. These facts are unacceptable. As a locally elected school board member, the solutions are clear to me. We need:

– More trade and vocational education
– Increased per-student funding
– Career counseling for parents and students
– Collaboration with teachers and parents

First, California public schools have to stop pushing and pressuring all students to go to college, and instead promote career technical education and trade/vocational career pathways in partnership with local community colleges and industry organizations. To accomplish this, we must invest in career technical education and revise our annual state testing, which is currently geared toward college-bound students, so that individual school districts aren’t faced with sacrificing high test scores by supporting career technical education.

Second, we have to alter our spending priorities and heavily invest in public education. California annually spends $9,000 per student and $62,000 per prisoner. Shouldn’t we be investing in students, not criminals? And isn’t a quality public education the best solution to high crime? It’s no coincidence that the states with the highest rated public school systems spend twice as much as we do per student, and significantly less per prisoner. Together with the California School Boards Association, I have advocated for adequacy in public school funding from Sacramento. I intend to continue those efforts as your assemblyman.

Third, to our college-bound students and their parents, we owe a duty of practical preparation. The college admissions process is daunting and difficult. Neither parents nor students feel confident that they can navigate it successfully. Wealthy parents can afford private college counseling, but what about the rest of us? Public school districts should be offering annual parent-student counseling sessions. Our college-bound students and their parents need help navigating the college admissions process. We can help by educating parents and students about the process, exploring opportunities, setting short and long term goals, and ensuring that they are on track to achieve those goals. We want all California students to be reaching their highest potential.

Finally, legislators, administrators, and teachers need to come together and work collaboratively. Public school teachers are our front-line professionals in effectively educating our students. It is our responsibility to support them with quality professional development, classroom resources, and discretion to individually refine their craft.

EMPOWERED LOCAL COMMUNITIES

As an active community servant, I can personally attest that local city councils and schools boards are the only ones in elected office that truly know the wants and needs of the people that they were elected to serve. We need to:

– Stop unreasonable state mandates
– Support public safety
– Restore control to city councils and school boards

First, Sacramento politicians are suffocating local governments with senseless state mandates, while neglecting to address chronic statewide issues. Their actions have, among other mandates, doubled the cost of public school construction projects and required our cities to clean and filter storm water runoff before releasing it into the aqueducts. Meanwhile, they are failing to address low-ranking public schools, the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, and taxation in the country, a $340 billion wall of debt, and $198 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

Second, public safety professionals in our local police and fire departments are struggling to comply with the mountain of regulations that Sacramento politicians continue to impose upon them. In the past year alone, over 2,600 bills were introduced and over 1,000 passed. Governor Brown himself has acknowledged this problem, stating “over the last several decades, California’s criminal code has grown to more than 5,000 provisions covering every almost conceivable form of human misbehavior.” Safe communities are essential. We must support and trust our public safety professionals to do their jobs, and keep us safe.

STRONGER JOB MARKET

We hear on the news that the recession is over, and that California’s economy has improved, but we’re not feeling it. Friends and family are still unemployed, and businesses lack all confidence to expand or take any risk. We still have some of the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, and taxation in the country, and are consistently ranked the worst state for business. As a current small business owner and former federal tax attorney with an accounting background, I can see that we are imposing too many barriers to success in front of our people and businesses. We need:

– Less regulation
– Lower taxes
– Workforce development

First, our state bureaucracy is too big. We have over 500 state agencies, departments, and commissions all passing regulations that are frustrating citizens and driving-away businesses. Tesla, Toyota, Campbell’s Soup, Comcast, and Samsung have all left California recently. In a survey of 650 corporate CEO’s by Chief Executive Magazine, California has been consistently ranked as the worst state for business for the past 8 years in a row. We need smaller government and less regulation.

Second, we need to lower taxes. California has one of the highest rates of per capita taxation of any state in the nation. These high taxes are driving people and businesses out of California everyday. High income and sales taxes are leaving all of us with less take-home pay. Our legislators in Sacramento don’t understand this simple concept. Instead, they are proposing increases to our sales tax, income tax, gas tax, alcohol tax, tobacco tax, health insurance fees, and car registration fees, and to repeal Prop 13 and raise our property taxes. Instead of eliminating these job-killing taxes, they are increasing them.

Finally, we must acknowledge the labor demands of today’s economy, and respond with appropriate workforce development. More and more college graduates are finding themselves without a job in their field, while trade and vocational industries maintain an overwhelmingly high demand for qualified professionals. These industries include welding, HVAC, drafting and design, video production, plumbing, electrical, and computer science, where professionals are well compensated and enjoy job security.

As a U.S. Army Sergeant (vet.), educator, school board member, doctor of education candidate, father, and husband, Armando Barajas has been highly invested in keeping our children, families, and communities safe, while ensuring that our children obtain the 21st century education and skill necessary to succeed in today's compeitve economy.