43
Youngstown returns to $125 per school board member per meeting
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Nearly $6,900 in taxpayer money has been paid to school board members for meetings so far this calendar year.
The seven-member board of education has been paid for eight meetings so far at $125 per member: three in January, four in February and one so far this month, totaling $6,875. That includes two regular meetings and one work session each month and special meetings.
One board member, Corrine Sanderson, missed one meeting.
At this point last year, payment for the same number of meetings would have been $4,375. That’s because the former academic distress commission, which was dissolved last fall, included in the district recovery plan a restriction that board members could only be paid for two meetings per month – regardless of the number of meetings. That plan was approved by Richard Ross, former state superintendent of public instruction.
But that commission was dissolved because of the Youngstown Plan, legislation that calls for a new five-member commission to be appointed. That commission is to appoint a chief executive officer to manage and operate the district.
That plan is held up in court, and no academic distress commission is in place.
Sherry Tyson, who began as district treasurer Jan. 1, said that through December 2015, board members’ pay was still restricted to two meetings per month.
She said she asked the district’s attorney, who said board members could be paid for every meeting because no commission is in place. That was confirmed with officials from the Ohio Department of Education, Tyson said.
Tyson said the change in payment was not initiated by any board member.
Brittany Halpin, an ODE spokeswoman, said in an email that whether board members are paid for meetings is a local decision.
At the time the old academic recovery plan was implemented, “the former ADC had the authority to approve district appropriations and expenditures, and chose to limit the number of paid board of education meetings,” she said.
“However, the former ADC ceased to exist,” Halpin said in the email. “While the district may choose to voluntarily follow the academic recovery plan, the former ADC does not have the authority to enforce the [academic recovery plan] at this point in time.”
Brenda Kimble, school board president, couldn’t be reached Friday.
Michael Murphy, vice president, doesn’t have an issue with payment for meetings. “I think there’s a need for it – the meetings,” he said. “I’m alright with it.”
Murphy, the board’s senior member, said he didn’t think the board met enough under the restriction.
“The stuff we’re going through, we need to meet,” Murphy said. “I’ll just say I’m all right with it.”
Jackie Adair, school board member, said she questioned the payment issue last fall, and the school board’s attorney said the former commission’s plan was null and void.
She said her issue isn’t the money. “To me it was a matter of law — that the academic distress commission was put in place to deal with the academics of the district,” Adair said. “No place does it say they control the business of the board.”
She said the previous commission overstepped its bounds with some of the academic plan’s restrictions including the limit on board members’ pay.
“When I first got on the board, I said – and [former board member] Marcia [Haire-Ellis] piped up and agreed with me – that I don’t have a problem with having meetings and not getting paid,” Adair said.
However, Adair doesn’t believe members earn the $125 per meeting.
“We don’t do anything at board meetings,” she said. “We get nothing done except entertain students and pass superintendent recommendations. We get paid for doing nothing.”