[T]he former chair of the Burlington School Board may have stepped down, but he hasn’t stopped fighting for a board that represents the taxpayer when it comes to money matters.
In a letter to the superintendent and the attorney for the school district last week, Mark Porter filed a formal conflict of interest complaint against several members.
Porter said that retired teachers, instructors from nearby districts and the spouse of a local teacher have an inherent conflict when it comes to negotiating contracts on behalf of the Burlington school district and against the teachers union.
These “direct and indirect conflicts of interest” exist regardless of whether discussed in private, public or during closed sessions, according to the letter written by Porter, the immediate past chair and board member.
Porter wants the commissioners in question to be restricted from making decisions regarding teacher benefits or any decisions “that bring benefit to teacher workplaces or compensation.”
Nicole Mace, head of the Vermont School Boards Association, said retired and active teachers have been members of school boards past and present, but she acknowledged Porter raises a real concern for boards.
“Questions about direct or indirect financial benefit are totally legitimate and need to be talked about,” she said.
Porter said that prior to his term on the Burlington board that began in 2014, there had been a decade of deficit spending that ran up a $12 million bill. “Those school boards had teachers and teacher retirees on them,” he said.
The board he presided over had to make tough choices, he said.
“If this board wants to continue the hard work of turning schools around, closing the achievement gap and maintaining financial integrity,” he said, “they will have to make tough choices to maintain the structure of the board.”
In his letter, he names retired teachers Keith Pillsbury and Stephen Carey; Martine Gulick, the director of library services in Essex; Monika Ivancik, who is married to a paraeducator; and Jeff Wick, the current vice chair.
Porter argues that the retired teachers are receiving pensions and benefits that are negotiated by Vermont-NEA, the teachers union. Also, Gulick’s salary is used by the union during bargaining to draw a comparison with Burlington teachers, and Wick has advocated for teachers on social media.
If the union is controlling things, why even have a school board in place, Porter asked, adding a school board answers “only to the electorate.”
By linking the board members to their positions as city officials who are bound by Burlington’s charter, he makes a strong argument that they must adhere to citywide conflict of interest laws, according to attorney of municipal law Daniel Richardson.
Richardson, who is with the firm Tarrant, Gillies & Richardson in Montpelier, said: “The charter is driving this because it has explicit inclusions of the school commissioners. It clearly covers them and has the power of state law behind it.”
Appearance of a conflict is more important than the actual thing, according to Richardson. “It is the appearance that is the key, does this person appear to be voting their own pocketbook?” he asked.
In this case, Richardson thought Ivancik would have the most difficulty in avoiding such an appearance. “Someone married to a teacher is going to be stuck in a situation where they won’t be able to negotiate without the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
He said he did not see a direct correlation for retired teachers, although he said it may be awkward to sit across from former colleagues at the bargaining table. He also did not necessarily see a problem with a school employee from another district.
Mace, however, said that having teachers from nearby districts is something that school boards often discuss, because in the thick of bargaining fact finders compare a town’s offering with teachers’ salaries in other school districts. This was a major issue during Burlington’s recent contract negotiations — which Porter presided over — that ended after the school board imposed terms and teachers voted to strike.
“I know many boards have had discussions about teachers employed in other districts when it comes to being part of the negotiating team because that is a very real dynamic,” Mace said. “When one community settles it impacts bargaining through comparability. Anybody with a direct or indirect interest in the outcome of a decision made by the board shouldn’t participate in the deliberations or the vote.”
Superintendent Yaw Obeng declined comment on Porter’s letter. Board Chairperson Clare Wool did not respond to an email requesting her views on the subject.
VSBA’s model language around conflict of interest requires boards to hear written complaints against members in an informal hearing. After that, the board members vote on whether the member should be disqualified from voting.
Burlington’s charter also would require the school board to police itself, with a two-thirds vote needed to disqualify a member.
It comes down to public confidence in the school board and its members, Richardson said. “In my experience when this arises, unless there is a good-faith basis to argue that it is not a conflict of interest, I often find officers will say they have a conflict.”
Richardson also said including Wick in the complaint is hard to justify, making the point that being pro-teacher or not is not a valid issue because the person was elected.
“It’s politics. If people want to elect a former teacher to the school board then they have chosen that,” he said.
Porter included a Facebook post written by Wick to teachers in September 2016, months before he was elected to the school board. In it Wick encourages teachers not to fight the one-year contract the school board had imposed and instead wait for him to be at the table for the next round of bargaining over a three-year contract. He said he hoped others of “like mind” would be elected and then “the whole tenor of the negotiations will go very differently.”
Mace also doesn’t see the conflict of interest when it comes to Wick. She said he put his cards on the table and people voted for him. “That was a question for the voters to decide. They know the role of the school board and that is what they wanted.”
Porter, stepped down in February from chair, after a testy and public exchange with Wick. Porter didn’t run for re-election in March because, he said, he wanted to spend time with family.
When asked for comment, Wick said only that it appeared Porter is “grasping at straws.”
But Porter says he is concerned that the community is not well represented by the composition of the current board.
“The school board is supposed to represent the wishes of the community, what they want budgeted and to make sure the schools are going in the right direction,” he said, “and not just advocate for the loudest voices in the room.”
