The newspaper asserts that the executive session on July 25 was illegal because budgets cannot be discussed in private under the Maine Freedom of Access Act, so any documents from the meeting must be made public.

The newspaper also is asking the judge to declare that the School Committee broke the law, and to bar the group from holding any further budget discussions in private.

"The closed session frustrated the public's right to know how taxpayer funds were spent, why the Portland School Department suffered a budget shortfall, and who is responsible," the newspaper's attorneys, Jonathan Piper and Sigmund Schutz of Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau & Pachios in Portland, wrote in the complaint filed in Cumberland County Superior Court.

The School Committee maintains that the budget was only the backdrop to a talk that focused on the roles of school officials.

Citing the officials' privacy, the panel is refusing to turn over notes taken by its lawyer and two of its members during the executive session, as well as a two-page document prepared for the meeting by Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor summarizing her leadership philosophy.

The newspaper initially asked for any documents related to the 45-minute-long executive session in a Freedom of Access Act request filed a day after the meeting.

The panel's lawyer, Harry Pringle of Drummond Woodsum in Portland, responded to the July 26 request in a letter Tuesday, saying that the documents are not public records because they were "prepared either for or at the executive session and relate solely to it."

"To produce them would run the risk of damaging the reputations of those public officials which the executive session was designed to protect," Pringle wrote.

School officials who attended the executive session with O'Connor were Finance Director Richard Paulson, who resigned Monday, and Human Resources Director Jolene Hart.

Pringle does not identify the School Committee members by name, but in his letter he describes one as having written "several notations and mental impressions solely for the use of that member" on an agenda for the executive session.

The other member similarly had taken notes on a small piece of paper, Pringle wrote.

In the newspaper's complaint, lawyers Schutz and Piper argue that the records need to be released to "vindicate the public's right to know."

"The No. 1 thing is to find out what did happen and prevent this from happening again," Schutz said in an interview after the complaint was filed.

The School Committee's justification for an executive session is not valid, the lawyers contend, because the law prohibits budget discussions in executive session, regardless of potential damage to people's reputation or privacy.

The lawyers further argue that no one's reputation or privacy was violated in the executive session.

The budget deficit was caused by $1.7 million in overspending, mostly from a rise in special education costs, and an $850,000 shortfall in revenue. Reimbursements from Medicaid, the public health insurance program, are down, for example.

Questions also have emerged over how $900,000 spent on city services went unrecorded, or why updated information on grants the schools had received was unavailable.

The School Department will use its last $1 million in surplus funds to reduce the budget gap. The city's reserve fund could be used to cover the balance.

However, it must be repaid quickly so the city can maintain a high rating for borrowing and investing money.

O'Connor said Tuesday she had not reviewed the complaint but would be happy to comment on it after she had.

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