When Brentsville School Board member Gil Trenum offered an amendment to the Superintendent’s proposal budget requiring the school district to find additional savings to be applied to reducing class sizes and funding school supplies, he was met by opposition from several School Board members.
At least one member said she thought it was inappropriate to change the budget at the regular meeting on Mar. 19, when the budget had already been considered and voted upon during the previous mark up meeting.
Lillie Jessie of the Occoquan District specifically said she opposed Trenum’s amendment because School Board members had agreed to not make any changes from their final straw poll vote, according to a procedural document.
“Number seven in my procedures says not to offer amendments to the budgets in open session as it is a duplicate of the work session,” Jessie said at the Mar. 19 School Board meeting. “I think that we need to follow the procedures as outlined.”
However, after Kim Simmons, a citizen and local education blogger, posted a copy of the work session list, it was revealed how ambiguous those procedures were.
Item seven is particularly open to interpretation. It reads:
“Board members are not so bound, but otherwise pledge to each other not to offer amendments to the Budget in open session, as being duplicative of the work session efforts, allowing for a straight up or down vote on the Budget that is reflected in the final vote of the work session. Board members may make any comments or discuss changes offered in the work session during the open session.”
Additionally, item one states, “A non-binding initial straw poll will be taken on the budget as presented by the superintendent.”
Trenum said the procedural rules were never voted upon, but Chairman Milt Johns took no objections to signify that his members acquiesced to following the procedures.
Johns said in an email correspondence with Bristow Beat that they are the same rules the Prince William School Board have followed during their mark up sessions over the past few years.
The rules, however, had significance if they encouraged School Board members not to diverge from their straw vote held at their mark up session.
But did they, really?
Trenum presented a similar plan during the mark up session and it failed. Having failed once, what chance did it have to pass among the same people? Perhaps his attempt at proposing the amendment during the regular session was just his means of demonstrating to his constituents that he tried.
Obviously, that’s one draw back of the non-televised session. School Board members want to be able to show their constituents that they fought for them. They do not want to walk into the regular session simply conceding the budget.
Next year, perhaps the School Board members will have to vote on those rules and see if they are something they want to adhere to. However, given the current wording, members can always still choose to go against their “pledge” so it would be better if the whole procedure could be revisited, sort of like starting with a zero-based procedural document.
But, we shouldn’t go so far as to get rid of work sessions all together. They have their place. They allow School Board members to ask frank questions of the administration without holding up a regular meeting. They are not particularly secretive, since they are open to the public and reporters. They are just not televised perhaps because it would not make very compelling television or because perhaps, this is the real behind the scene stuff, and people want to be able to be candid without having to explain themselves for not knowing everything about the budget.
Actually, the first thing I would change about the work sessions is their meeting times. At the end of a long regular session, which does not even begin until after 7 p.m., everyone is tired. School Board members and administrators are, shall we assume, not their best and brightest selves pushing midnight, when they desire to get home to bed.
The time is a motivating factor to wrap it up and get out of there, (even thought the Kelley Center is lovely and there is coffee and popcorn for School Board members). Still those late hours favor the administration, not the citizens who want oversight of the budget.
If the School Board members are to be held to their straw poll votes, those votes should be conducted at another time, a time better suited for the significance of voting on a billion dollar plus budget.
The Board of County Supervisors takes weeks to review its budget. It is not expected to offer all of its changes in one, short late night meeting. We don’t make our best decisions past 11 p.m., why should we ask our citizen representatives to do so?
Support Bristow Beat - Donate Today!