DELIBERATIONS MAY BE conducted in executive sessions for:
A: Discussion or consideration of the employment, appointment, assignment, duties, promotion, demotion, compensation, evaluation, disciplining, resignation or dismissal of an individual or group of public officials, appointees or employees of the body or agency or the investigation or hearing of charges or complaints against a person or persons subject to the following conditions:
1) An executive session may be held only if public discussion could be reasonably expected to cause damage to the reputation or the individual's right to privacy would be violated;
2) Any person charged or investigated shall be permitted to be present at an executive session if he so desires;
3) Any person charged or investigated may request in writing that the investigation or hearing of charges or complaints against him be conducted in open session. A request, if made to the agency, must be honored; and
4) Any person bringing charges, complaints or allegations of misconduct against the individual under discussion shall be permitted to be present.
THIS PARAGRAPH does not apply to discussion of a budget or budget proposal.
Some say members were right to keep the session closed. Others said the committee should keep all its discussions about the controversy public.
Residents were reacting to the committee's 5-0 decision to move into a closed-door session with Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor, Finance Director Richard Paulson and Human Resources Director Jolene Hart to discuss the assignment and duties of employees in view of the budget deficit. State law allows officials to close meetings involving the discussion of employee assignments and duties, but budget discussions must be public. Several residents protested the private meeting.
School Committee Chairman John Coyne emerged from the meeting to say the committee had made progress. He said the committee may call more private sessions as it investigates the deficit but offered no other details about what happened in the closed meeting.
At issue is a deficit that went largely undetected by the School Department until this spring.
Since then, the $500,000 deficit originally disclosed by the department has grown to $2.5 million, the result of $1.7 million in overspending and an $850,000 drop in expected revenue.
School Committee members, including Ben Meiklejohn, defended their secret session. Meiklejohn had tried unsuccessfully to keep a discussion of the school superintendent's salary public.
Wednesday's meeting was different, he said, because it involved School Department employees' performances.
School Committee member Robert O'Brien, who was absent from the vote to go behind closed doors, said a private session is sometimes the only way to get candid answers.
"It is not that I don't think the subject should be public -- we have already discussed it in public -- but this is an additional step in our investigation to get answers. It's in the public's interest for us to get those answers," he said.
Some Portland residents said the committee should keep the entire process open.
"Everybody in Portland is concerned about the budget and concerned about the plan to bring the school system forward. I would have liked to see the meeting conducted in public," said Robert Ruesch, a parent of Portland schoolchildren and chairman of the Portland Education Partnership, a private group that works to enrich students' experiences.
George Aponte Clark, who helped found Kids Before Cuts, a group to keep parents and residents informed about the budget process, said the committee should not be meeting about the budget deficit in private.
However, he said, it is up to residents to be involved in the finances of the schools.
"We need to weigh in on the process before we get to the point where we have to have closed-door, secret meetings to address the problems that have arisen," he said.
Some Portland city councilors said the School Committee acted appropriately.
"If the reason is narrowly limited to those proper purposes, then they are permitted to go into executive session," said Councilor James Cohen.
Councilor Edward Suslovic said closed meetings are necessary to protect employees' reputations, but at this point School Committee members should be discussing publicly their strategy to address the deficit and measures they are taking to make sure it does not happen in the future. "If all the public hears and sees is the School Committee going behind closed doors, that is going to lead to all sorts of discussion," he said.
Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:
bquimby@pressherald.com
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