From the Beaufort Observer (2/1/10): The Beaufort County Board of Education often makes many of its decision out of public view. This is a violation of the N. C. Open Meetings law, certainly in spirit if not technically. The intent of the law is that the public have access to the information, discussion and actual vote on any action any board takes.
But if you watch the January 25 board meeting you see that obviously some of their most important decisions are being made out of sight of the public. In fact, it was so glaringly obvious that they were doing this that the chairman, Robert Belcher, asked the new superintendent Dr. Don Phipps, to “explain what we doing…these got approved at committee meetings….”
As you see in the video, Dr. Phipps explained four of the items. There were eleven items on the “consent agenda.” One involved a $570,240 contract, one involved a “change order” for $1,079.50, and one item for over $50,000 for the purchase of furniture that although mentioned by Dr. Phipps was not clearly explained such that the public could understand what was being done, except that it appeared it was another one of those instances where they scrounged up money to cover an apparent budget overrun.
The point is, the action may have been completely legitimate, but without hearing the discussion and knowing what the vote was there is no way to know. But what is not in doubt is that the public has no way, even with Dr. Phipps’ explanation, whether the board members exercised their duty of due diligence . There is certainly more to a multi-year, half million dollar contract than who the low bidder was and whether “we have been satisfied with the current vendor’s performance.”
Careful readers here will remember there was an issue on this contract just two years ago about whether the vendor could sub-lease the towers for non-school use to for-profit third parties. With this action we have no way of knowing how that issue will be handled for the next three years.
Roberts Rules of Order provides for a board to use “consent agendas” to dispose of non-controversial matters without discussion and in a single vote on all consent items. But the N. C. School of Government recommends that the use of a consent agenda approval process be codified in board policy. Beaufort’s policy 1410 deals with how board meetings are to be conducted. It does not mention “consent agenda.”
But the real issue here is not how they actually act on the consent agenda. Rather, it is how things get put on it.
The Beaufort County Board of Education divides its membership into two committees: The Building and Grounds/Finance Committee (B&G) and the Personnel and Curriculum Committee (P&C). Each board member is assigned to one or the other committee. The Board chairperson serves as an ex-officio member of both committees. Policy 1340 specifically provides: “A standing committee has no authority to act on behalf of the Board unless specifically authorized by the Board.”
Now follow this closely.
The committees typically meet a week or so before each regular Board meeting. The minutes of those meetings are a part of the regular meeting agenda and in most instances they are listed as a part of the “consent agenda.”
What is important about these committee meetings is two things: One, they are not televised or recorded and it is unusual for the public to be present. Members of the press seldom attend. (In the Observer’s case it would triple our staff time in covering the school board and we assume anything important is going to be done in the regular meeting.)
But secondly, and more importantly, the committees are not made up of all the board members. Only half the members serve on each of the committees. Thus, theoretically, only half the board members vote on what is decided in a committee meeting.
For example, the half million contract decided on last month was reviewed, discussed and voted on only by the members of the B&G committee. Similarly, (again theoretically) the people being recommended for employment action were considered only by the members of the P&C committee.
Yet, by putting the committee actions under the “consent agenda” only half the board members (theoretically) have considered, discussed and voted on any such item.
Now notice we constantly said “theoretically” above. We have reason to believe that on some items both committees are briefed on certain items. And in fact, it would appear that the reason this is done is because those items are actually controversial and that is the reason they don’t want to deal with them in an open meeting where the press is present and the video recordings are being made.
Commentary
We believe this School Board, under the two former superintendents and the last two school board chairs, along with their attorney(s), has had a penchant for doing business in secret. We think that is certainly a violation of the Open Meetings Law’s intent and we think it is bad practice for a public board to deal with the public’s business in secret, no matter how that secrecy is obtained.
We believe the use of these committees is intentionally designed to allow decisions to be made in secret and should be stopped.
The board should adopt a policy that clearly spells out procedures that insure that the public has access to their decisions.
If they are going to allow committees to actually make decisions for the full board in the committee meetings they should video record broadcast those meetings. But the typical practices of other boards is a better approach. The committees do the homework and then present the issues to the full board. The full board, in full public view, then discusses the issues and then all the board members vote on it. The purely routine items are handled with a consent agenda. But half million dollar contracts should not qualify for “routine.” Budget amendments should be explained publically and voted on by every board member. All policy decisions should be presented to the full board, discussed in open session and voted on by all board members.
The same is true for items that qualify to be discussed in closed session. The law permits secret discussions to the extent that it is necessary to protect confidential information from being disclosed. But that is strictly limited by the law. Once the confidential information is disclosed in closed session, the discussion, debate and vote are required to be conducted in open session.
If this school board is not going to conform its actions to the law then it may as well just meet in secret and put everything on the “consent agenda” and cut the meetings to the warm fuzzy stuff they do at the beginning of each meeting before they invite what public does show up to leave.
The public at this point has no idea how each board member felt about the items they voted on that were on the consent agenda. That’s wrong. It is a poor way for elected officials to do the public’s business and it should be changed (without a law suit forcing them to obey the law).
Beaufort Observer News and Commentary