Earlier in March South Carolina Governor McMaster issued an order that groups of 50 or more shall not gather. This is part of South Carolina's response to the coronavirus COVID-19 problem.
Later this month Governor McMaster tightened his order, which now prohibits gatherings of three or more people and grants authority to law enforcement to break up gatherings of this size. He explained that his order "does not apply to homes, work places, or law-abiding businesses."
Will Richland 2 cancel its March 31 board meeting?
A quorum of the seven board members is required to hold a meeting. Richland 2 has defined a quorum as five (5). I believe the law is intended to mean that a quorum must be present in person.
If there aren't five board members present in person on March 31, any attempt to conduct business will be illegal. All the Board Chair can do is announce that no meeting can take place. I believe Richland 2 cannot have a legal quorum with fewer than five present in person. Any other board members attending by telephone should not be counted in determining whether a quorum exists..
If there are not five board members present Tuesday night, then Richland 2 will not be a "law-abiding business" and one of the Richland County Sheriff's Department deputies present should break up the meeting, as ordered by Gov. McMaster. Will he?
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Is Richland 2 pulling a fast one?
When Richland 2 school district published the agenda for the March 31, 2020 Regular Meeting (re-scheduled from March 24), I noticed immediately that the proposed revision to Board Policy BEDH had not been attached to the agenda.
Omitting it is the equivalent of keeping it secret from the public. This provokes a second question. Do the board members know what is in the revision?
This morning an equally-important change in the Agenda jumped out at me.
Notice Item 6 in the agenda, which can be viewed on the District's website.
Go to www.Richland2.org
Click on EXPLORE (top right)
Click on School Board
Click on AGENDA
Under Meetings, click on Regular Board Meeting
Click on View the Agenda
Scroll down the list on the left
Usually, "New Business - Action Requested" follows Public Participation.
However, for the March 31 meeting, this item is in the agenda twice. The first time is before Public Participation. Why is this important?
Because the proposed revisions to Board Policy BEDH address Public Participation!!!
The Board will be asked to approve the revisions, yet the Board has never seen the proposed revisions. Normally, the proposed revisions are presented for discussion and considered in a first reading, and then a vote is taken at a following meeting.
But not this time.
Administration is violating Board Policy by jumping the line with this item. Why?
What if the Board hasn't even received a copy of the proposed revisions yet?
Why is this item placed ahead of Public Participation?
The proper place for it is in Item 10 "New Business - No Action Requested"
Now, the superintendent knows this. The Board Chair knows it. Why the change???
Will the public be allowed to question this on March 31, before the Board votes? Not according to the agenda. Public Participation occurs after the board considers Item 6.1.
The agenda for meetings is compiled by the Board Chair and the superintendent. Will there be some fireworks at the March 31 meeting? See you there.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Board Meeting - time change. Attachment missing
The re-scheduled meeting of the School Board, now on March 31 (not last week, as it should have been), includes an earlier start time for the Regular Session. NOTE: If you want to be there at the beginning and want to speak, plan to arrive before 6:00PM.
The Executive Session will be held at 5:30PM, and the Regular Session will start at 6:00PM (not 6:30PM).
A significant omission from the agenda for the March 31 meeting is the attachment for revisions to Board Policy BEDH. Without that attachment, it is very hard to know what the Administration and the Board have up their sleeves for changes to the Public Participation board policy.
The Public Participation segment seems to be only a "courtesy" time allowed to members of the public. The board does not respond to speakers at the meeting, and my experience has been that the board does not respond after meetings, either. The first segment is before the board addresses business on the agenda. The second segment could allow members of the public to comment of actions taken by the board at the meeting, but there are seldom any speakers slotted to the second segment.
Often the Chair announces that no one has signed up for the second segment, except that isn't how it works. There is no place of the required advance form to indicate a preference to address the board at the second segment.
What is the Board cooking up for revisions to Policy BEDH?
Usually the revisions to a board policy are attached to the agenda, so that the public is given notice of changes and has an opportunity to provide input. Not this time. Why not?
ALERT: At the April 7, 2020 board meeting a Public Input session will be held at 5:00PM. This likely has something to do with the budget, but no information is provided in the preview of the agenda.
Why does the board schedule a Public Input session for 5:00PM? Generally, few or no members of the public show up. The Public Input session remains open for 30 minutes, and then the Board disappears into Executive Session for 60 minutes. Generally, board members chat privately (even though it is an official meeting of a quorum of the board) or look at their phones. At 6:30PM the Regular Session on April 7 is scheduled to start.
Why doesn't the board schedule the Public Input session for 6:30PM and then continue right into the Regular Meeting? The Public Input portion could be part of the board meeting. If no one shows up, the board could move right into agenda items.
The Executive Session will be held at 5:30PM, and the Regular Session will start at 6:00PM (not 6:30PM).
A significant omission from the agenda for the March 31 meeting is the attachment for revisions to Board Policy BEDH. Without that attachment, it is very hard to know what the Administration and the Board have up their sleeves for changes to the Public Participation board policy.
The Public Participation segment seems to be only a "courtesy" time allowed to members of the public. The board does not respond to speakers at the meeting, and my experience has been that the board does not respond after meetings, either. The first segment is before the board addresses business on the agenda. The second segment could allow members of the public to comment of actions taken by the board at the meeting, but there are seldom any speakers slotted to the second segment.
Often the Chair announces that no one has signed up for the second segment, except that isn't how it works. There is no place of the required advance form to indicate a preference to address the board at the second segment.
What is the Board cooking up for revisions to Policy BEDH?
Usually the revisions to a board policy are attached to the agenda, so that the public is given notice of changes and has an opportunity to provide input. Not this time. Why not?
ALERT: At the April 7, 2020 board meeting a Public Input session will be held at 5:00PM. This likely has something to do with the budget, but no information is provided in the preview of the agenda.
Why does the board schedule a Public Input session for 5:00PM? Generally, few or no members of the public show up. The Public Input session remains open for 30 minutes, and then the Board disappears into Executive Session for 60 minutes. Generally, board members chat privately (even though it is an official meeting of a quorum of the board) or look at their phones. At 6:30PM the Regular Session on April 7 is scheduled to start.
Why doesn't the board schedule the Public Input session for 6:30PM and then continue right into the Regular Meeting? The Public Input portion could be part of the board meeting. If no one shows up, the board could move right into agenda items.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Any COVID-19 in Richland 2?
How many cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed among Richland 2 School District students, staff, employees or parents? Any?
Schools are closed. Where are the kids? Are the sequestered in their homes? Obeying the social-distancing recommendations? Do they really how serious today's circumstances are? Is each doing all that is necessary to contain the disease and avoid spreading it?
What has been the financial impact on families?
Who needs assistance and doesn't know how to get it?
The March 31st School Board meeting is still scheduled. Monitor the Richland 2 website for any cancellation.
Schools are closed. Where are the kids? Are the sequestered in their homes? Obeying the social-distancing recommendations? Do they really how serious today's circumstances are? Is each doing all that is necessary to contain the disease and avoid spreading it?
What has been the financial impact on families?
Who needs assistance and doesn't know how to get it?
The March 31st School Board meeting is still scheduled. Monitor the Richland 2 website for any cancellation.
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Special-Called Board Meeting needed
On March 13, 2020, Richland 2 School District announced that "Beginning Monday, March 16, 2020, through Spring Break:
- all student and staff travel will be canceled or postponed."
The District's schools have been closed by order of South Carolina Governor McMaster.
Obviously, what the announcement means is that "school-related and District-paid travel" as regards staff and "school-related/sponsored travel" by students. If students wish to travel on personal business, that will be up to their parents, not the school district.
Teachers and parents are being communicated with by the district's Administration.
It seems to me that the Board should be calling a Special Meeting to hear, as a group, what the Administration is doing and to confirm steps being taken by the Administration to address the closure of schools and the impact on the District and all of its employees from the coronavirus spread, as well as providing correction and/or direction as needed. It's called Leadership.
It is the Board that is responsible to taxpayers and voters of the District, and the public is entitled to know just what is going on. The way that should happen is in a public meeting of the Board. For example, are teachers being paid? Is full-time staff being paid? What about part-time, hourly workers (cafeteria staff, custodial staff, security staff, bus drivers)?
This could easily be done by announcing a Special Meeting, open to the public and live-streamed, with full awareness of the open meetings laws, and at the same time encouraging the public not to attend in person.
Board members could sit six feet apart from one another, skip the Executive Session, and reduce the number of staff members who normally give up an evening to sit and watch. A handful of chairs could be placed for any audience members brave enough to show up at a public meeting.
The Board is responsible for about one billion dollars of assets, nearly 30,000 students, and over 3,000 employees.
Too many on the board lack executive mentality for leading a large business. Some of them cannot even manage their own finances in an ethical manner. Too many come from an educational background and lack meaningful business experience and training to direct the management of such a large business.
Think large corporation. Would shareholders tolerate Directors with significant personal obligations in arrears?
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Arithmetic Errors pursue McKie
Amelia McKie has trouble filing required reports with the Ethics Commission on time and filing them correctly.
As mentioned in the previous article, she said in a public meeting of the Richland 2 School Board (in January 2019, I believe) that it wouldn't happen again. I understood her to be telling the public that she'd be filing future required reports on time.
Campaign Disclosure Reports due to the South Carolina Ethics Commission are to be filed quarterly. However, McKie's reports for 4/10/2019, 7/10/2019, and 1/10/2020 were filed late.
Her Report due 10/10/2019 was filed on time, and she amended it on 3/4/2020.
On the Amended Report she reports $250.00 in "individual funds" contributed to her campaign. Now, what would cause her to "remember" that contribution five months later? And why didn't she report it correctly and on time?
The next obvious problem (obvious to anyone with a rudimentary skills in arithmetic) is why does she have less money on-hand than was reported in October 2019? If she received a contribution of $250.00 and didn't incur additional expense (which she didn't), wouldn't she have more money on-hand?
But that's not what her filed Reports show. Her amended report corrected an unexplained error in the original report, but it did not correct the errors that occurred earlier in 2019. Those errors still exist.
This leads me to decide that the Ethics Commission doesn't examine the reports when they are filed. It looks like the Ethics Commission just accepts them as filed.
Then it's up to someone, somewhere, to inspect the reports and alert the Commission to the errors.
The magic of computers ought to make it easy to confirm sums and differences; you know, basic arithmetic calculations. Flags ought to pop when numbers don't agree. But they don't.
As mentioned in the previous article, she said in a public meeting of the Richland 2 School Board (in January 2019, I believe) that it wouldn't happen again. I understood her to be telling the public that she'd be filing future required reports on time.
Campaign Disclosure Reports due to the South Carolina Ethics Commission are to be filed quarterly. However, McKie's reports for 4/10/2019, 7/10/2019, and 1/10/2020 were filed late.
Her Report due 10/10/2019 was filed on time, and she amended it on 3/4/2020.
On the Amended Report she reports $250.00 in "individual funds" contributed to her campaign. Now, what would cause her to "remember" that contribution five months later? And why didn't she report it correctly and on time?
The next obvious problem (obvious to anyone with a rudimentary skills in arithmetic) is why does she have less money on-hand than was reported in October 2019? If she received a contribution of $250.00 and didn't incur additional expense (which she didn't), wouldn't she have more money on-hand?
But that's not what her filed Reports show. Her amended report corrected an unexplained error in the original report, but it did not correct the errors that occurred earlier in 2019. Those errors still exist.
This leads me to decide that the Ethics Commission doesn't examine the reports when they are filed. It looks like the Ethics Commission just accepts them as filed.
Then it's up to someone, somewhere, to inspect the reports and alert the Commission to the errors.
The magic of computers ought to make it easy to confirm sums and differences; you know, basic arithmetic calculations. Flags ought to pop when numbers don't agree. But they don't.
Financial Integrity - how important?
How important should the personal financial integrity of School Board Trustees be?
Should it be squeaky clean? Above reproach? Should all Trustees be keeping very high standards of personal financial integrity?
And what happens when they don't?
Well, if you're a Richland 2 School District trustee, apparently nothing happens.
For insight to this question, refer to the South Carolina State Tax Lien Registry at dor.sc.gov/liens Search the Lien Registry for "Individual".
Enter the name of your favorite trustee and inspect the results.
A second place to look is the list of Debtors on the website of the South Carolina Ethics Commission at ethics.sc.gov Near the top right of the homepage click on "Debtors". After you read about the (unsuccessful) efforts of the Ethics Commission to squeeze payments out of the debtors, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Debtors List (PDF)"
The Ethics Commission apparently has trouble alphabetizing names, because it has put McK before Mah. Look for Amelia McKie. Her $51.750 debt shows a Default Year of 2016. That was halfway through her first term as a trustee. You would have to read the Commission's Decision & Order dated July 3, 2018 to get the whole picture.
When McKie had not made any payment toward her debt, in July 2019 the Ethics Commission filed a judgment with the Richland County Common Pleas Court (Case No. 2019CP4003809). You can inspect the court entry here.
The South Carolina Department of Revenue is the collection agent for the Ethics Commission. Apparently, it's pretty busy, because no entries appear in the court record after July 2019.
Is it any wonder that the List of Debtors on the Ethics Commission website, dated 1/13/2020, is 28 pages long and that the uncollected amount of debt is $2,762,979?
McKie's debt isn't the largest or the oldest. I think it was in January 2019, after her ethics' woes were reported publicly, that she said it wouldn't happen again. She meant "filing late" wouldn't happen again. Yet it did! She filed Campaign Disclosure Reports late not once, not twice, but three times! The Reports due 4/10/2019, 7/10/2019, and 1/10/2020 were filed late.
She did file her 10/10/2019 report on time (10/10/2019), but she amended it on 3/4/2020. See the next article about her amended Campaign Disclosure Report, filed 3/4/2020, for her Report filed on 10/10/2019.
Maybe someone should ask Gov. McMaster why the DOR isn't doing a better job collecting these debts?
Should it be squeaky clean? Above reproach? Should all Trustees be keeping very high standards of personal financial integrity?
And what happens when they don't?
Well, if you're a Richland 2 School District trustee, apparently nothing happens.
For insight to this question, refer to the South Carolina State Tax Lien Registry at dor.sc.gov/liens Search the Lien Registry for "Individual".
Enter the name of your favorite trustee and inspect the results.
A second place to look is the list of Debtors on the website of the South Carolina Ethics Commission at ethics.sc.gov Near the top right of the homepage click on "Debtors". After you read about the (unsuccessful) efforts of the Ethics Commission to squeeze payments out of the debtors, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Debtors List (PDF)"
The Ethics Commission apparently has trouble alphabetizing names, because it has put McK before Mah. Look for Amelia McKie. Her $51.750 debt shows a Default Year of 2016. That was halfway through her first term as a trustee. You would have to read the Commission's Decision & Order dated July 3, 2018 to get the whole picture.
When McKie had not made any payment toward her debt, in July 2019 the Ethics Commission filed a judgment with the Richland County Common Pleas Court (Case No. 2019CP4003809). You can inspect the court entry here.
The South Carolina Department of Revenue is the collection agent for the Ethics Commission. Apparently, it's pretty busy, because no entries appear in the court record after July 2019.
Is it any wonder that the List of Debtors on the Ethics Commission website, dated 1/13/2020, is 28 pages long and that the uncollected amount of debt is $2,762,979?
McKie's debt isn't the largest or the oldest. I think it was in January 2019, after her ethics' woes were reported publicly, that she said it wouldn't happen again. She meant "filing late" wouldn't happen again. Yet it did! She filed Campaign Disclosure Reports late not once, not twice, but three times! The Reports due 4/10/2019, 7/10/2019, and 1/10/2020 were filed late.
She did file her 10/10/2019 report on time (10/10/2019), but she amended it on 3/4/2020. See the next article about her amended Campaign Disclosure Report, filed 3/4/2020, for her Report filed on 10/10/2019.
Maybe someone should ask Gov. McMaster why the DOR isn't doing a better job collecting these debts?
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