We’ve acknowledged many times that this newspaper’s publisher is not an attorney and the newspaper is not a law firm, but basic common sense makes us question some of the procedures announced recently in connection with the ostensible “settlement” of the dispute between the local school board and the county commissioners over funding for the school system for next year.
The school system took the unprecedented step last week of voting, 7-0, to invoke a state statute in which they began the process of formally, and legally, challenging the commissioners’ allotment to the school system.
The first step in that potentially contentious process was a joint meeting between the two boards, held Friday in the courtroom on the second floor of the Historic Court House in Graham.
During that joint meeting, school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves announced after her board returned from an approximately 20-minute long closed session: “I am pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with our board of commissioners without the need for mediation.”
“We?” (We’re reminded of the old Lone Ranger joke in which Tonto responds to his senior partner with the refrain, “What do you mean ‘we,’ kemosabe?” (using Tonto’s name for the masked horseman) when he questioned the Lone Ranger’s inclusion of Tonto in a reference to “we.”
Her saying it doesn’t make it so.
According to the school board chairman, the school board didn’t vote in the preceding closed session.
And while we expected the school board to vote to formalize their “acceptance” of such an agreement Monday night, they did not do that, and the chairman told our reporter there is no plan to do so – and that there’s no need to do so.
And she got the school system’s attorney – or at least the junior version filling in for their regular attorney – to say no vote was required.
So is there really an agreement between the two boards, other than the school board chairman claiming there is?
But obfuscation about exactly who is initiating, accepting, or agreeing to this increase in funding for the school system isn’t restricted to the school board chairman.
County commissioner chairman John Paisley, Jr. was also uncharacteristically snide in refusing to answer directly our reporter’s question about exactly how the commissioners had decided on tendering an “agreement” to the school board.
“More than two” commissioners, he told our reporter, had agreed to the proposition that was offered to the school board.
Well, exactly how many, and, equally importantly, which commissioners?
It’s obvious enough that Paisley and Priola were on the losing end of the 3-2 vote granting the school board more money last week – and hiking property taxes 2½ cents in the process.
So we can easily imagine that the same three commissioners who were willing to do that – vice chairman Steve Carter, Pam Thompson, and Kelly Allen – were probably more than willing to give away more of the taxpayers’ money in “negotiations” with the school board.
While Paisley said toward the end of Friday’s joint meeting that the commissioners would vote on the agreement at their next meeting (July 7), there seems to be some backtracking on whether there will actually be a vote on the agreement itself or not.
Now, it appears it’s to be more of a separate vote on a “budget amendment” to increase the county’s allotment to the school system – but not, necessarily, on the agreement itself.
We don’t have any doubt but that the school system would eagerly vote to accept the additional money. And we can imagine that some commissioners might not be equally enthusiastic to cast yet another vote for more money.
But in either case, it seems to us that each board – and each member of each board – is obligated to let the public know exactly where they stand on this ostensible “agreement.”
The state’s Open Meetings Law makes very plain that “a public body may not vote by secret or written ballot.”
As far as we can tell, each of the two boards needs to take a public vote on the agreement – regardless of how individual members feel about it.
