From the Winston-Salem Journal (1/16/12): When the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board agrees to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle a lawsuit, it does so in closed session.
This appears to be within the board’s rights under North Carolina open meetings statutes, and the money is generally paid out by one of the school system’s insurance companies, not from the public till.
But the way the board discloses these settlements to the public raises questions about its openness, said Amanda Martin, general counsel for the N.C. Press Association, in answer to questions from the Winston-Salem Journal.
Lawsuit settlements are not noted in meeting minutes regularly distributed to the public before school board meetings. Instead they’re disclosed in a second set of minutes for closed sessions, which are available to the public only when requested. One board member, Jill Tackabery, said last week that she didn’t know this second set of minutes existed.
Closed school board sessions are just that — closed-door meetings the board typically holds in a conference room adjacent to its main public meeting auditorium. They’re used to shield sensitive discussions about employee job performance, new hires, real estate deals, lawsuits and a handful of other exceptions to state statutes that otherwise would require open meetings.