The School Committee and the plaintiff, the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, have agreed to ask a Cumberland County Superior Court judge for an expedited hearing schedule. If the request is granted, the case will be heard in weeks, rather than months.
The newspaper said it hopes the judge will order that the records from the July 25 meeting be made public, agreeing that budget discussions are prohibited during executive sessions under the Maine Freedom of Access Act.
The School Committee counters that a closed meeting was necessary to protect the privacy and reputation of school officials who were being questioned about their financial management of the department, and that the budget was tangential to that discussion.
Both sides say they wish to meet with a judge in the next week to set a hearing schedule.
"If there is any information that must lawfully be made public, the public should have the information accessible to it as soon as possible," said one of the newspaper's lawyers, Sigmund Schutz of Preti Flaherty in Portland.
A lawyer for the School Committee, Melissa Hewey of Drummond Woodsum in Portland, said the panel wants to be able to put the lawsuit behind it.
"We want to get this resolved, so people can devote their full attention to the real issues, which relate to the budget crisis, (school) consolidation and everything else that the school committee does for educating kids in Portland," Hewey said.
Hewey said she planned to file a response to the newspaper's complaint this week.
Under fire for the budget gap, the School Committee called the executive session to get answers from Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor, Human Resources Director Joline Hart and Finance Director Richard Paulson, who resigned Monday.
The deficit includes $1.7 million in overspending and an $850,000 revenue shortfall that could result from reduced Medicaid reimbursements and the loss of funding for grants administration, O'Connor has said.
Most of the overspending has been attributed to decisions that school administrators and the School Committee made last fall or earlier. It includes: a failure to trim spending by $500,000 after the City Council ordered a cut of that size before passing the school budget; $625,000 in additional special education costs, including a dozen teachers hired last fall; and $265,000 to cover 3 percent negotiated salary increases that were budgeted at 2.5 percent.
For more insight into the deficit, newspaper said it is requesting any documents from the executive session, which the School Committee's lawyer said include notes taken by two members, as well as a two-page paper prepared for the meeting by O'Connor, summarizing her leadership philosophy. The School Committee rejected the newspaper's original request for records filed last week under the Freedom of Access Act.
The newspaper also is asking that the judge declare the July 25 meeting illegal and prohibit the school board from holding future budget discussions behind closed doors.
Staff Writer Josie Huang can be contacted at 791-6364 or at:
jhuang@pressherald.com
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