School Board and Sunshine Law
TaylorCountyCitizen starts the following discussion:
In another discussion, "Jim" mentioned that the school board approved the hiring of the new football coach with no discussion. This struck me as strange, and I see only two possibilities:
1. The school board had no questions.
or
2. The school board had questions, but they were answered prior to the board meeting.
I find both options equally disturbing.
If we go with the first option, it means that the board exhibited no curiosity about the person they were bringing in to fill a very important position. I'm sure the packets they received contained things like a resume, but surely they still would've had a few questions. According to Jim, though, they didn't ask any. Not about the new coach. Not about transferring the current coach to Steinhatchee. Not about transferring the coach that's in Steinhatchee to Perry. Not one question.
If we go with the second option, it means that the board violated state law by discussing the issue outside of a public meeting. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the only things school boards are allowed to discuss in private are pending litigation, student discipline cases, and collective bargaining. The hiring of a new employee wouldn't fall under any of those categories.
Hopefully I'm just looking at this wrong, and there's another possibility I haven't considered that doesn't involve a disturbingly hands-off approach by the board or a violation of the law. Anyone?
I also wonder about the 5% cut the teachers received in their paychecks this month. There is no mention of discussion of this in the minutes. Yet, Mr. Dyal says the email notifying employees was "from the district including myself and the school board" Shouldn't this have been discussed at a school board meeting? Doesn't that violate the sunshine law if it wasn't discussed in a public forum?
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Any attorneys around here?
The board voted on the 5% cut for all employees other than those in the union (according to the minutes from the February 10th meeting). If they voted on the cut for teachers, though, they didn't do it at a public meeting.
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I understand that the only issue that can be discussed in Executive Session is collective bargaining. Apparently the Board held Executive Session after the budget workshop on 3/10/09 and voted or agreed to start taking the 5% pay cuts out beginning 3/13/09 and then approved it at a public board meeting on 3/17/09. If the initial decision was done outside of the sunshine law, then the board and the superintendent deserve whatever they get. Its funny that the board member chairperson had the audacity to save "well times are tough and everyone has to do their part." Since making this decision, it will more than like cost the district MORE money, which they claim they don't have! There will be a public hearing on Thursday, 3/19, at 6:00 p.m. to discuss the noninstructional union's impasse, which quite frankly, is a moot point because the board members are the legislative hearing body and they have already made up their minds as evidenced by their "egregious" actions demonstrated in the past few weeks. Be there to hear what they tell the staff. The public needs to hear how sorry they are the budget cuts have to be made. The finance director reported to the board that they should be $100K to the good (according to the FADSS folks who are monitoring the finances and making recommendations on how to balance the budget)by the end of the school year. Wonder if they could find that money, why they can't find more money to fix their mistakes and stop making staff pay for those same mistakes. The board members either don't know what is in their envelopes, don't read them ahead of time, or read them at the meeting, which would explain why they don't ask questions. No one bothered to ask why the former head coach is still on a 11 month/8 hour per day contract and has just transferred to a P.E. position at Steinhatchee. What will he do the last month of his contract? Most school staff are on 10 month contracts, why didn't the board members question that decision?
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So let me get this correct, the new head coach brought his wife, and she got a job, he got a new asst. coach with wife and she got a job too, Harris moves to Steinhatchee, Wentworth moves to High School to do what? Please set me straight if this isn't correct, or if I mis-read something.
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As far as I know, the parts about wives getting jobs are rumors--that hasn't happened. Also, I've heard that the coach wants to bring in an assistant from his old school, but that hasn't happened, either.
What did happen was that Harris was moved to Steinhatchee to take Wentworth's job, Wentworth was moved to Perry, and the new coach was hired.
All with absolutely no discussion by the board, if Jim's report about the meeting is accurate.
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Personnel issues are legally to be discussed in the "sunshine". Someone or group of folk likely have violated the sunshine law and the contracts with instructional and non-instructional unions. Either way it is a lapse in ethical judgement and surely to be brought out in the unfair labor practice to by filed and lost by Dyal and the district.
For all of the ethusiasm and promise of out with the old, Oscar and in with the new, Dyal....it sure is business as usual. One thing is crystal clear, Dyal is not up to the job and will not be able to provide the leadership our school distrct so desperately needs.
I hope our district can hold our for Dyal's term. I think an ethics complaint is warrented and forth coming. To blog administrator, it sure is hard to not write what everyone is thinking about Dyal and the composition of his character. I think we have Forest Gump as a superintendent, and it is not funny!
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I have to say, I still feel like Dyal has provided the district with strong leadership during a very tough time. Whereas Oscar tended to take a hands-off approach, Dyal has taken charge and made a series of tough decisions in an effort to get the district back on solid financial ground.
He has only been in office for a few months, and has made some mistakes just like any rookie would. I primarily see the mistakes revolving around poor communication; I think he's from a generation that has completely different mindset about that topic. His philosopy seems to be that the less is said and the less information made public, the better.
There was a time when government could get away with that, but those days are over. The Internet has changed the game, and people's attitudes have shifted; they now expect transparency from their elected officials. If he doesn't learn that lesson soon, his reputation is going to continue to be damaged.
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Dyal is hardly a rookie. He has had his head in the school district feeding trough for sometime and now is getting his "high five" like a lot of these folks do and want to do. I remember some FCAT fiasco attributed to Dyal's leadership at the middle school. Not much has changed about Dyal, albeit he may be the lessor of several other evils who ran for the super's job!
All this Sunshine Law discussion and violation of the Sunshine law at the school district could not have come at a better time since this month/week is the 100 year aniversary and "Sunshine week". It is funny that after a hundred years of Florida "sunshine" related legislation, small minded and moronic elected officials are still violating such laws and self- interpeting such laws to their own personal benefit and schemes.
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The meeting tonight was a joke. Some of the board members looked disinterested when the union presented their case, which was quite informative. Seems the board (not the current superintendent) have allowed such mismanagement of district and taxpayers' money for a number of years and now are trying to remedy their incompetence by making employees cut their salaries. What is worse, after all the cuts, the Board's finances will be in the black around $800,000 according to the finance director. What surprised me was that there were not more non-instructional employees there. The union guy told the board that many of the employees told him that it won't make any difference, they were still going to have to pay the piper. It also sounded like they were threatening employees with "if the cuts aren't made now, they will be made later by eliminating positions. The board plans on eliminating positions anyways so what difference does it make. One truth spoken tonight by Dyal was that by having $800,000 in the "bank", the district will no longer be under DOE's thumb. After reading the recommendations of the FADSS report, he could only name 3 things the board has followed, two being taking 12 buses out of service and closing Steinhatchee School. It sounded good but... Anyways, seems the board already had their mind made up since they approved the salary cuts just 2 days ago in Steinhatchee. Since all the board members have other jobs, maybe they should have reduced their board salaries to ZERO. That would have saved the district a hefty chunk of change since they earn $25,000 a year plus benefits. Its too bad more employees were there. Guess they figured it was already a done deal and they were right!
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To clarify, I think you mean those are FADSS recommendations that the board has *not* followed. The report estimated that closing Steinhatchee School would save the district over $688,000. The district chose not to follow that recommendation, claiming that the FADSS report is wrong and they're not actually losing money on the school.
Also, the board didn't vote on the 5% cut at the Steinhatchee meeting this week, as far as I know. They couldn't have, because the cut took place last week. If they voted on it, they didn't do so in a public meeting.
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The district does not and will not have "$800,000 in the bank". The board's budget is far from "in the black" and the district is still bankrupt!. As far as being "no longer under the DOS's thumb", check with Dyal and company and see who has been called DOE's office in Tallahassee on Monday of next week to answer questions about the districts finances. Dyal is so dishonest and it is getting to the point that you really cannot believe anything he says during meetings.
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I saw the agenda and the committee is the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, Audit of the Taylor County School District, quite a report! At http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?File=meetingpackets.cfm&Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&Tab=committees
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Thanks for the link--that turned out to be an interesting read. Especially the part that outlined a series of additional cost cuts the district is looking at. Cuts that hadn't previously been made public.
This is a milestone for Taylor County Talk... People found out here they were losing their jobs before they heard it through official channels!
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TCC: The adoption of the 5% salary cuts for the instructional and non-instructional staff was added to the agenda at the meeting in Steinhatchee and unanimously voted "for" by the Board. Yes, an email was sent by Dyal on last Thursday, after FCAT, informing staff the reduction would be in their 3/13 check on Friday. So it had to be agreed upon by the board members and supt. outside of sunshine! And last night they talked about being in compliance with the law???????
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Well, well... I just looked over the minutes from the March 17th meeting, and you're right! The agenda used at that meeting was not the agenda made available to the public in advance. Apparently they added the 5% pay cut at the last minute, along with the hiring of the new football coach. Sneaky!
I guess I'm just confused about how this whole process works. The board voted on the pay cut on the 17th, but the cut was enacted the week before the vote and was reflected in the paychecks employees received on the 13th? How does that work?
The minutes reflect no discussion about the cut. If the minutes are accurate, no board members had any questions about it. Not one. Just like with the hiring of the new coach.
Why, it's almost as though all of these things had been discussed and worked out prior to the meeting. Except that that would be illegal, so that couldn't possibly be what happened.
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Isn't it interesting that the friend of the new coach (the one who has NOT been promised a job yet, nor has his wife been promised a teaching position) was in town yesterday, looking at houses that are for sale. Imagine that- someone wants to buy a house in a town where they DON'T have a job. Looks like another rainy day in Perry......no SUNSHINE in our future!
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To use a Dyal colloquialism, that will be "par for the course" for the Dyal tenure in the school district.
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I reviewed the link under Anonymous post dated 3/25 and the agenda posted proposed position cuts at all of the schools. Interesting reading. Guess principals and administration need to break the bad news NOW since its on the Internet. I don't always believe everything I read, but this came from Dyal, which was presented to legislatures on Monday as to how he plans on balancing the budget. I think they have bigger problems than they are letting on and OSCAR HOWARD as well as BOARD MEMBERS should have to answer to the public for mishandling taxpayers' money. If the board members want to save face, they need to start asking a lot of questions rather than rubber stamping everything presented to them on the agendas. One thing for sure, they should make everything financial an action item rather than a consent item on the agenda, which passes without any discussion because it is approved with the approval of the agenda. I still don't understand how taking 5% of all employee salaries has given the board a reserve of $800K+. Guess they have some esplainin' to do to John Q. Public and we should be there asking the hard questions, making them accountable for every action they take. As long as we, the public, do nothing, they will continue business as usual. Is that what our children, employees, and residents of this community deserve? I hope at election time we get new folks in office with some education experience rather than Buckeye employees and businessmen. I hope they run their businesses a lot better than they have the school district. They must because they are still in business!
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The board members haven't been held accountable. Weren't one or two of them up for reelection this past November? There didn't seem to be an accountability from the voters at that time. When my board member runs again, you can bet I'll vote for the opposition (assuming I have a choice).
What's amazing to me is that even after all of this, the board continues to rubber-stamp. I'm not saying they should micromanage the district or challenge the superintendent on everything, but they should at least be asking some questions.
Now, my theory is that they probably ARE asking questions--they're just doing it outside of public meetings. But that's illegal, and just as bad as asking no questions at all.
One thing I'd like to see is the full board meeting packets made available to the public. When I go to the county's website, I can view these for their meetings. When I go to the district's website, all I can see are the agendas.
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On the subject of sunshine laws, here's an interesting read:
http://www.iamtroublemaker.com
Here's the story... A guy named Joel Chandler made a public records request of every school district in Florida. This is perfectly legal, and his goal apparently was to make sure that districts understood how the sunshine law worked. Turns out, a lot didn't. Here's his report card:
http://www.iamtroublemaker.com/IAmTroublemaker.com/Sunshine_Chronicles/Entries/2009/1/3_A_Public_Records_Report_Card_for_the_School_Boards_of_Florida..._files/Report%20Card.pdf
Our own local district failed the test by not responding at all to his request.
Now, there's good news and bad.
The good news is that after he made a second request and the media started covering his story, Taylor County responded. Here's some of their response:
http://www.iamtroublemaker.com/IAmTroublemaker.com/Document_Archive/Entries/2009/3/23_Alachua_files/02-11-2009%20Taylor%20County%20Letter%20from%20Paul%20Dyal.pdf
(And more can be found at http://www.iamtroublemaker.com/IAmTroublemaker.com/Document_Archive/Entries/2009/3/23_Alachua.html)
What's interesting is that Taylor County is charing this guy $469 to fulfill his request.
It's not illegal to charge a reasonable fee for providing records. The question is, is $469 reasonable? Because according to the report card, Broward only charged $105. Leon charged $50. A number of districts didn't charge anything at all.
In fact, if I'm looking at the report card correctly, only four districts in the entire state billed more than Taylor County.
When you look at the bill Taylor gave him, you can see why it was so high. They're charging him over $57 per hour for the Director of Personnel's time, for example. Is that really what he makes? They're also charging over $27 per hour for "clerical time." I don't know what clerk is making $27 per hour, but I want that job!
Let me make a prediction here... The Taylor County School District is likely to soon hear from Chandler's attorney. That attorney is going to request the actual salaries of the people working on this project--salaries which are, of course, public record. The attorney is going to see that the district is trying to bill Chandler at rates that are significantly higher than its actual costs for fullfilling the request. This will mean that the district is breaking the law. The district will then be sued (Chandler has already successfully sued Polk County), and the expense of the lawsuit will cost them WAY more than the $469 they're trying to collect from Chandler.
As a taxpayer, this makes me mad as hell. You can complain all you want about Chandler's actions (and most every district has), but the fact is that they're legal. You don't fight with a guy like that, because you're not going to win. Instead, you make him go away. And the way to do that is to give him what he wants.
Give him the records. Do it for cheap (or no charge), and move on.
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Looks like those links are too long to work right on this web page. Here are shorter versions:
http://tinyurl.com/ca5daf
(District report cards)
http://tinyurl.com/ctlx7s
(One of Taylor County's responses to Chandler's request, including their invoice to him)
http://tinyurl.com/dlx7k4
(Other responses from Taylor and other counties)
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Thanks for the info, everyone concerned about our commmunity should read the information. I do not recall the city, county, school board or any other organization offering such training on this important information, unless it is done out of the "sunshine". LOL. Seriously, this should be mandated training for every local elected official, appointee (ie TCDA) and many others who use public funds. Maybe someone should sponsor such training!
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Here's another interesting read:
http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/KGRG-7Q2JH2/$file/Fees.pdf
It's from Florida Attorney General's office. It says that in special circumstances, government agencies can charge fees beyond the normal 15 cents per copy when producing records. BUT, it says:
"The special service charge should be based on actual labor costs for the personnel who are required to complete the records request. In calculating labor costs, agencies should use the clerical employee’s base salary and employee benefits for the time spent making copies, even if an employee at a higher pay level actually did the work."
The district is charging $27 per hour for clerical work. Are they claiming that's the "base salary"?
Also, it says that "an agency may not charge fees designed to recoup the agencies original cost of developing or producing the records." That's interesting, because the invoice shows the district charging Chandler a fee for 1.75 hours of a programmer's time. Presumably, that's so the program can write a program to produce the records--but the Attorney General says that cost can't be charged.
I'm no lawyer, but to me this just looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I don't know who advised the district to charge these rates, but I'd say it was bad advice. It could very well turn out to be EXPENSIVE bad advice.
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I believe they (the elected officials) know all about "sunshine and the law" but morality and ethics are something else we need to contend with. Knowing and acting within the confines of the law is something our elected officials don't practice because if they did, the school board members would not have voted for a cut in salary for their instructional and non-instructional personnel after the reduction was discussed behind closed doors and implemented before they voted in a public meeting in Steinhatchee. Was that a planned move or what? And when the non-instructional staff union guy was talking to them, it was obvious they were interested. Mr. Dennis appeared to be doodling on his paper, Mr. Lundy was looking at the ceiling. At times, Mr. Southerland appeared to be listening. But again, their body language said it all: You are wasting your time and ours because we have already voted. The item was also added to the agenda AFTER the agenda was posted on the Internet. It has the appearance of being legal. What was the board attorney doing while the board discussed the salary reduction in closed session outside of the watchful eyes and ears of the public. Three of the four board members have been reigning for more than 20 years and unless there is opposition, they will continue to do so. How often do we interact with our elected officials? Only when it personally affects us? Well, the school system affects all residents because they have family members either working for the district or attending school in the district. Its time these elected officials find another "second" job.
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Mr. Southerland was not in attendance at the Steinhatchee meeting. He was out due to being sick, I think he was hospitalized for a medical issue.
You may be right in regard to the deer in the headlight look of the other school board members during the union rep's comments. I was struck by the comments that in effect implied that in his 25-30 year career, he had not seen such an such an "egregious" action that compared to Dyal's actions on behalf of the school board.
The "board attorney" is not Dyal's attorney and has no ability to control what Dyal does or says. If you have been to school board meetings in the past (Oscar) and recently (Dyal) you would see that it typically does not matter what the board attorney advises the board members or the superintendant, they usually appear, like you stated, "we have already voted". This was the same when Oscar ran the dog and pony show and appears to be the same now.
The problem we have is the void of leadership at the school district. The school board like a lot of the employees are only there for a check, and are typically self serving. I can not honestly think of any school board or related elected person or member of the school board administrative team that would minimally be considered as having leadership abilities.
It is really a shame, during the last election for superintendant, the vote was for dumb, dumber or dumbest. Like a bad Jim Carey movie, it would actually be funny if it were not our school district, our community, and most importantly our kids!!!!!
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I think they understand the basics of the sunshine law, but I'm not sure they're aware of its finer points. For example, I don't think they would've charged Chandler for the time the programmer had to spend generate his requested records if they had realized it wasn't legal to do so.
Beyond the law, we also have the issue of judgment. The law says the district can charge Chandler a reasonable fee for producing the records. Good judgment says you find out what other districts are charging so that you'll know if your price is completely out of line with theirs. Good judgment further says you may want to consider not charging him at all so as to keep him happy--which is exactly what a number of other districts did.
Now, I don't know who Dyal gets his advice from. I suspect it's the district's directors. But considering that those same directors were advising Oscar Howard as he ran the district into the ground, I'd say that their judgment is questionable and that Dyal ought to consider doing pretty much the opposite of anything they recommend.
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Contact John Weed Jr ( at the State Attorneys office) he has a presentation which leaves No dought, what they can or canot do legally. I will every elected official.
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Well, given his lack of experience and close ties to some of the biggest Sunshine Law violators, I do not have much faith in John N. Weed. The First Amendment Foundation in Florida produces a lot of resources that can be used and are easy to undestand.
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Elwood, I stand corrected. You are right that Mr. Southerland did not attend the meeting in Steinhatchee. However, he was privy to the superintendent's decision to reduce salaries because he did attend the meeting before when it was discussed in secret. So in my opinion, Mr. Southerland is just as responsible as the other board members. What do you think?
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I am not defending Mr. Southerland in any way. I do not know of any secret meetngs, but several board members have always met with Oscar prior to board meetings and I would assume the inappropriate action is still occuring with the ethically challenged Dyal. On a bigger picture issue, I am no Oscar Howard fan, I think he was a cancer on the district for a long long time and should be in jail, but the school board members are just as guilty of ruiniing the district, they have long since been guilty of not keeping up with their fiduciary responsibilities, they approve everything and although the puppet master (Oscar or Dyal) is constantly manipulating things, they could put their collective feet down and say NO or at least admonish the superintendant, but this never happened in the organized crime family that was the Oscar era and I hope the current state of the school district will cause the school board to wake up and spend as much time on such issues as several have on selling the district goods and services as noted in the recent audits. The big problem now, other than the budget issues is that Dyal appeqars to lack any leadership ability at the district level and with the school board, Dyal could be the knight in shining armor, but his lack of ethics and dishonesty is what is shining!
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According to Florida laws, there are four type of meetings: those open to the general public, executive session (for collective bargaining); legal (to discuss legal issues, i.e. the district is being sued), and expulsion hearings (where only those students and parents may attend). Since they discussed and agreed to reduce salaries NOT in a general public meeting, it had to be one of the remaining three. Either way, it was outside of the public's knowledge until it was too late.
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You are correct. And why go through the steps and have a quasi judicial hearing scheduled to discuss the unfair labor practice and then send out an email notifying everyone of the cuts a week before the hearing date. Dyal has no respect for the district employees, his administrative team, the board attorney and our community. Dyal takes his cues from that Tallahassee moron that is heading the school superintendants association. What will Dyal do when the State of Florida comes in and takes over the district? What an unprpared professional for our school district! (Not what I am thinking!)
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Even private meetings like executive sessions must be announced to the public, with agendas and minutes posted. There was no meeting held just prior to the announcement of the move to cut salaries.
According to the record, the board voted on this issue at the March 17 public meeting. Which is confusing, because the pay cuts took effect in the March 13th paychecks.
As I've said before, I'm no attorney. But I don't understand how the board could retroactively approve something like this. Isn't the flow generally that the board has to approve things BEFORE they happen, not AFTER?
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As reported today in the St. Pete Times:
Hernando teachers: Remove Superintendent Wayne Alexander
BROOKSVILLE --Superintendent Wayne Alexander pushed back today against calls by the Hernando County teacher's union for his dismissal.
"I don’t see removing me as a solution to the budget constraints and unknowns that currently exist," he told the Gradebook.
In a resolution crafted Tuesday, the Hernando Classroom Teachers' Association union said the School Board should remove Alexander as superintendent, less than two years into his tenure, and rescind all teacher nonreappointments pending review by an independent committee.
It said morale among district employees was at its "lowest level in decades due to unnecessary reductions in staffing and blatant favoritism in nonreappointments."
"When you have a team that’s having problems, what do you do?" asked HCTA president Joe Vitalo. "You get rid of the coach."
Two weeks ago the district launched a wave of downsizing, telling around 200 non-tenured teachers and support staff that their positions were being eliminated. Those reductions come in addition to around 80 nonreappointments issued in March for performance reasons.
Alexander said those reductions were necessary to plug a projected deficit of 15 percent or more in the district's budget for next fall. The union said those moves were premature in light of recent budget plans from the House and Senate, with some observers predicting a shortfall for districts of 7 percent or less.
"We’re not getting double digit cuts from the state, so why are we acting like we need more?" Vitalo said.
Alexander said his hands were tied by the uncertain state funding picture, and by his desire to provide plenty of notice to employees that their positions might be in jeopardy.
But he acknowledged that some teachers might prefer to keep their jobs for now, and take their chances with a summer layoff if the money's not there.
"Theyr’e saying, 'We’ll take a chance, we’ll roll the dice, cut less money now, Wayne,'" he said. "(But) if you kept your jobs, you might need to take a lot less money."
And would he be interested in keeping people employed, if that meant negotiating other items on the district's cost-cutting list, such as a pay freeze or pay cut?
"Most definitely," Alexander said.
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Could the same thing work for board members? LOL
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