Nepotism and School Board Elections

[Update: It has been pointed out to me that I should have referenced the HB431 “The School Board Governance Improvement Act of 2012” in this post. This is absolutely correct as it might have had a direct impact on the inclusion of this policy. However this law offers no requirements that a school board member’s family resign once a school board member takes office. The closest requirement is: Section 2(c)(3) which reads: “No person shall be elegible for election or appointment as a member of a county board of education unless he or she satisfies all of the following qualifications: (3) Is not employed by that county board of education, unless serving as a member of the county board of education on the effective date of this act.” As I read and understand that, that means that a person currently working for the school board cannot also be a board member (excluding those who are grandfathered in.)

There is no requirement in the law that states that a school board member’s family cannot be an employee of the board of education.

Thanks to good readers for pointing out this omission.]

If Pat King wins her race against Laurie McCaulley for the school board, the new assistant principal of Huntsville Middle School–her husband, who has worked for the district for the past 18 years–will be forced to resign thanks to a new policy created by our superintendent and approved by the Board of Education under Mrs. McCaulley’s leadership.

Our children should be protected against people using their positions for their own private benefit, but punishing a family member who is already employed by the district is simply an attempt to subvert the democratic process and control who runs for the school board.

If you haven’t already downloaded and read through the new Huntsville City Schools Policy Manual, you might want to do so now. I can’t promise you it’s a fun read, but is certainly is interesting.

Nepotism

One of the most interesting parts is found on Page 46, section 5.2.8 entitled “Nepotism.”

This section reads:

a. Supervisory Relationships – No employee may be assigned to a work location or to a position in which the employee would report to, be evaluated by, or would work under the supervision of another family member as defined in the Alabama Ethics Law. Any inadvertent employment or assignment of a family member that violates this policy must be promptly disclosed to the Superintendent upon its discovery, and all involved employees must cooperate in accepting reassignments or taking other measures necessary to correct the violation.

b. Employment of Family Members – Administrators and supervisors may not use their positions to directly or indirectly seek or secure the employment of any family member as defined in the Alabama Ethics Law.

No family members of Board members as defined in the Alabama Ethics law shall be employed by the Board, and any family member of a Board member who is employed by the Board upon their family member’s election shall resign their position with the Board before their family member assumes office.

The 2011 Policy Manual

As with all long documents, the new policy manual took a while to develop. After all, the document being replaced wasn’t a single document, but rather an ever-growing individual collection of policies and procedures published as single documents. If you would like to take a look at the previous Policy Manual’s Index, you may review it here. The index was seven pages long listed eleven separate sections of the Policy Manual. One thing that this earlier version of the policy manual didn’t include was a Nepotism policy as you can see from reviewing the “N” Section of the index below:

This nepotism policy is a new one that the superintendent and the board came up with when they were revising the policy manual during the spring.

First Draft (March 2012)

Clearly they’ve been working on these new policies for a long time. I have a copy, for example, of a draft of the changes to the policy manual dated March 2012. This was the working, draft copy of the Policy Manual that the superintendent and the board distributed to a select group of individuals throughout the district seeking their input. It was the working manual until June 6, 2012 when the revised manual was presented to the board.

Interestingly enough, this draft policy manual had a slightly different version of the Nepotism policy than the one that was voted on by the board. Here’s the draft Nepotism policy:

As you can see, the first part of the policy is basically the same. 5.2.8(a) Nepotism reads:

a. Supervisory Relationships – No employee may be assigned to a work location or to a position in which the employee would report to, be evaluated by, or would work under the immediate supervision of another family member as defined in the Alabama Ethics Law. Any inadvertent employment or assignment of a family member that violates this policy must be promptly disclosed to the Superintendent upon its discovery, and all involved employees must cooperate in accepting reassignments or taking other measures necessary to correct the violation.

The problem arises when we look at the 5.2.8(b) section, which reads:

Employment of Family Members – Board members, administrators, or supervisors may not use their positions to directly or indirectly seek or secure the employment of any family member as defined in the Alabama Ethics Law.

As you see, the draft policy 5.2.8(b) is fairly reasonable. It prohibits people from using their positions to hire a family member, which is a good thing. It falls in line with the Alabama Ethics Law 36-25-5(a)which states:

No public official or public employee shall use or cause to be used his or her official position or office to obtain personal gain for himself or herself, or family member of the public employee or family member of the public official, or any business with which the person is associated unless the use and gain are otherwise specifically authorized by law. Personal gain is achieved when the public official, public employee, or a family member thereof receives, obtains, exerts control over, or otherwise converts to personal use the object constituting such personal gain.

The law does not require that family members of board members resign as a result of their familial connections. All that’s required is that the board member not hire his or her family members after they’re in a position to influence the hiring decision.

The Second Draft (June 6, 2012)

During the Work Session of the June 6th meeting, the board was presented with what would become the final version of the Policy Manual. Belinda Williams and Dr. Wardynski offered a brief presentation (the entire discussion lasted eight minutes) of the work that Mr. Spinelli and an undisclosed “Superintendent’s Leadership Team” had done. The only discussion of the policy manual that took place was concerning Dr. Robinson’s desire that we post the manual on eBoards.

There was no discussion of specific policy changes, and there was no discussion of the nepotism policy at all.

Extremism Masked as Reform

Telling board members they can’t use “their positions to directly or indirectly seek or secure the employment of any family member” is a far cry from the policy as it was finally approved. Here’s the final version of Policy 5.2.8(b) again:

b. Employment of Family Members – Administrators and supervisors may not use their positions to directly or indirectly seek or secure the employment of any family member as defined in the Alabama Ethics Law.

No family members of Board members as defined in the Alabama Ethics law shall be employed by the Board, and any family member of a Board member who is employed by the Board upon their family member’s election shall resign their position with the Board before their family member assumes office. That entire second paragraph is brand new and was added between the publication of the Policy Manual Draft in March 2012 and the approved policy dated June 21, 2012.

Since the policy specifically references the Alabama Ethics law, it would be helpful to review what the Alabama Ethics Commission has to say about nepotism. A quick review the opinions offered by the Alabama Ethics Commission finds no opinion that would support such a punitive response to the election of a family member. All four of the opinions offered deal exclusively with the hiring of a family after a person is elected or appointed to a public office.

If a district employee were competent enough to warrant hiring on his or her own merits, why should that employee be required to resign simply because a family member wins a seat on the board?

The Alabama Attorney General offered a similar opinionon Nepotism back in 2008. Rep. James Buskey asked for an opinion concerning nepotism and the recommendation of the hiring of a Superintendent’s family member. The opinion offered this advice:

to avoid running afoul of the nepotism statute when recommending a relative: (1) recommend at least one other equally qualified person for the position, and (2) refrain from participating in the board’s decision-making process. This would give the board the option to select either of the qualified applicants.

Thus, the superintendent could even recommend the hiring of a family member so long as he or she did not unduly influence the process after making the recommendation.

If a single superintendent could recommend a family member without running afoul of the law why couldn’t the Huntsville Board of Education, which has five members, manage the same? Clearly the recusal process could easily cover any potential issues that might arrise.

I’ve watched the board for over a year now. They pride themselves on taking a hands off approach to handling human resource issues. On the rare occasion that they are required to step in, clearly a board member who has a family member being brought up for discussion could simply excuse him or herself for a quick drink of water.

Who Added This New Policy And Why?

Without having access to the meetings where this the new policy manual was discussed and developed, we may never know who suggested the inclusion of this new verbiage between March and June 2012.

However, we can see at least one person who would benefit from its inclusion.

The primary beneficiary here is Mrs. Laurie McCaulley, the current school board president, who is running for re-election of District 1 on August 28th. She is opposed by three other candidates: Reginald Hill, Gwen Ragland, and Pat King.

In so far as I am aware, the Pat King is the only candidate that has a family member currently working for the district. Her husband, Johnny King is an assistant principal who was transferred to Huntsville Middle School as one of their two assistant principals at the board meeting last night. Mr. Johnny King has at least 18 years of experience according to the Human Resource report. It seems that he’s qualified entirely on his own merits.

And of the four candidates running for the District 1 seat, the one who collected 45% of the vote in the previous election would likely have the best shot at unseating an incumbent.

Pat King began taking steps to run again as early as 2011. Her Facebook campaign page went live for the 2012 election on May 16, 2012. At some point between March 2012 and June 6, 2012 the new policy was included in the Policy Manual.

I do not know if Mrs. McCaulley knew that change had been made to the new Policy Manual, but as a member of the board, she should have. She had at least two weeks between the June 6th and June 21st meetings to have reviewed it. When the manual came up for a vote on June 21st, none of the board members asked any questions before they voted unanimously to approve it.

This policy isn’t necessary. Even the Ethics Commission’s opinions demonstrate that this goes too far. Its purpose isn’t to control nepotism.  Its purpose is to control the nature and direction of the board. Its purpose is to subvert the democratic process by predetermining who is and who is not qualified to have an opinion and influence over the direction of our schools. As a show of good faith in the people of Huntsville and in the teachers and staff of our school system, the policy should be removed before the August 28th election.

If not, well, I for one still believe in an informed and educated public who has the right to vote can shake things up for the better. I hope that Mrs. McCaulley believes in fair elections as well.