[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Good evening, everybody. I am Paulette Van der Kloot, chair of this subcommittee on the School Committee for the Charter Study. And I'm calling this meeting to order. Present, we have Ron Giovino, Eunice Brown, Aubrey Webb, and Milva. Milva. And we're expecting one other member soon. Phyllis will be joining us. So tonight we're going to take off where we left off more or less last week. In terms of the agenda for the first item of a business approval of the minutes of the meeting held on 3-19-2024, I'm going to ask that we table that for tonight. So if we can have a motion to table. Motion to table. Okay. Thank you. All in favor?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye. Okay. The second item of business is we're going to go back to the comparison document and which we were originally working from. Aubrey, if you could bring that up.
[Maria D'Orsi]: That's at the article four.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, it's four, and we're going to go to 4-3 initially. Last time, we spent a lot of time on 4-1 and 4-2 when we worked through ideas and where we're going to head on those items, wording. We're going to pick up on 4-5, but I'm going to leave that for, we're going to discuss 4-3 and 4-4, and I think 4-6 first actually. Now, I was not able to be at the meeting, the larger meeting on last Thursday, but my sense of it is that we are tonight have before us some of the same issues. And again, I know you didn't get to any, I read the minutes, but I haven't been able to watch the whole meeting. Section 4-3 is pretty standard and says prohibitions. As I looked at these, I did not work out new wording for these sections as I had earlier. I think that this first Melrose one and Aubrey, can you just slide it up a little bit? They're very similar in intent. Basically, they all say you cannot hold any other position. And so you can't basically be paid twice by the city. So you can't be a school committee member and hold a paying position within the city.
[Ron Giovino]: But you can be mayor and be paid on the school committee. Is that correct?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, that's true. Well, yes. I think that's sort of interesting, Ron. Remember, we initially, when we started out, I mean, those were considered stipends. So the mayor received a stipend And for the service time on the school committee. Then as time went on, because of tax reasons, we were told that we had to, it had to be salaried. So that became an additional part of the mayor's salary. But not a separate position as to prohibit. So we might want to figure, that wording out. But there's a question, I think a bigger question about compensation in the next area. All of these, they have this thing though that if you work for the city and you leave so that you can run and be on the school committee, But then you decide you want to leave the school committee position and go back to your employment, you can do that without the year wait.
[Ron Giovino]: Where does it say that? Is it in writing or is that?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, it is. Aubrey, if you scroll down so I can see more of the green, I need another sentence of the green, yeah. It says, this section shall not prevent a city officer or any other city employee who has vacated a position in order to serve as a member of the school committee from returning to the same office or other position of city employment held at the time the position was vacated. provided, however, that no such person shall be eligible for any other municipal position until at least one year following the termination. So if I'm the budget person at City Hall and I decide to take a leave, I can go take a leave and run for school committee. And then if I decide to leave the school committee, I can come back and go right into my position. This is how I understand it. But I can't take a different job within the city.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, and the other question, too, is if you don't take a leave, say you terminate your position and then want to come back, is that different than having taken a leave to be in the school committee?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I have no idea.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, so I guess my point of this is that I'd like to know what the Mass General Laws are saying and how we, you know, what's in line with what their legal employment rights are. I don't know if that's something we can dictate unless, you know, it sounds right that if you go, you leave your position, you have the ability to go back to your position. But then again, what's the term before you do that? And if that position gets filled, do you still have that ability?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. I don't understand. That was from my school committee perspective. I know that we had Bill Brady was the case in point. He ran for the school committee. He had to leave his job because he couldn't get paid in two different areas. And that's what he did. He left his job. I know that it's pretty standard practice that if you serve on the school committee, you can't get paid by the city in a job for a year. So the other things in those paragraphs are all consistent with what I understand. All three of the schools, all three of the towns, had this thing about if you leave and go back. And that's not something, I mean, to me, that's all very theoretical.
[Ron Giovino]: The thing that I see, when I see all three towns identical with their thoughts, it makes me believe that they're just following mass general laws.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so we have to look up Mass General Laws. I didn't do that, again.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, I think it is safe to assume that because they're all listed here, I think it's safe to assume that it is within the Massachusetts General Laws that that's true. But I think there are other conditions that I don't know the answers to, such as if a finance director leaves to go to the school committee, Then decides to leave the school committee to go back and that position is not available. They have no ability to go back to that position.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, but is that our. Is that really our purview to. I mean, there's so many hypotheticals in that.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. No, I hear you. That's what I'm saying. I think we're crossing an HR line boundary here that I don't know if any of us know the answer. It's interesting that it's here for everybody that they can go back if they want to, but nowhere does it define within six months, within three months,
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, what happens if the position isn't there? Because you would assume the position isn't there. Now, in the areas that people have reviewed for the charter for city council, is there also not a similar position? I thought I remember reading something similar.
[Eunice Browne]: That's what I was going to say. Isn't this language that's going to have to be consistent across all three branches of government?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I certainly think it's going to be.
[Eunice Browne]: Whatever we put here needs to be the same in the other two areas.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I take it this is not an area that was discussed last week. I don't remember.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I don't recall if this provision is under city council or mayor, but we'd have to look.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so right now on this particular one, we have some questions. All of the wording, I think it's actually, I think they're all the same, but again, I'm only seeing part of it now as I was re-reviewing it this afternoon. They're very, very similar. So I think we put this aside. The question is what's under Mass General Law? What's under for City Council? Is that?
[Milva McDonald]: Well, this must be standard language, because it's in all three of these charters, and I'm guessing it would be in others too. So I don't, you know, I don't think that the mass general law conflict is going to be a big issue, but.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So I think, I mean, nobody has any, we're not debating the points within the language. Is that true, everybody?
[Ron Giovino]: No, I think we all agree on that. I just think the verbiage of what we put in there will be up to the Collins Center to help us with.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I think we don't need to. I think we all agree that that's OK. It's just consistently OK.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. So I think we can move on to section 4-4, compensation. And now I'm going to start sort of really asking the same thing. In terms of compensation, the discussions for the city council And I mean, earlier, when I was at earlier, some earlier meetings, we talked about maybe making a committee, a city committee that would, of people who would deliberate on compensation. And so we had discussed that in the entire committee. I clearly think that, and I'm sure you agree that whatever we say for compensation for the school committee should be consistent with the city council. And I'm not talking about the amounts, I'm talking about the process.
[Milva McDonald]: I think this reflects what it says for city council and the committee would not set the salaries. They would just be a research and advisory committee so that they would still need to be set by ordinance.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And the ordinance would be put together by the city council, not by the school committee, correct?
[Milva McDonald]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: As far as we know, the school committee cannot set its own pay scale. Is that correct?
[Milva McDonald]: I haven't seen any place where that happens.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm pretty sure that the city council is the appropriating body for ordinance, yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: What's very interesting here is the, in the first one, is the 18 months, it shall have to be adopted during the first 18 months of the term? for which the school committee members were elected. In other words, not wanting to have a last minute November, December, as we saw this year, which ended up, you know, causing. So that's kind of an interesting thing. Aubrey, can you scroll down a little bit more so we can see Pittsfield?
[Ron Giovino]: Pittsburgh, Pittsfields has that 18 months as well.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. And so does Weymouth.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Weymouth does include a piece on expenses. And so that's interesting. It's a very open-ended statement, I would think that we would want to say the expenses of conferences I think we would want to define it. So the school committee members have a conference they can go to on a yearly basis every November. It's usually held in Hyannis. It's sponsored by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. And traditionally, the school district does pay for it. There has been some, you know, there were some years where there were a particular member or two. who objected to that. It is definitely, it's, you know, basically professional development for the school committee. And that's a very positive thing. I went for many years. And traditionally, our expenses were covered for that. So I would, I think we should articulate that and maybe other, you know, expect this this is a the way that it's written it's um uh if i go to a school event and there's a charge i could um uh i i could ask to be um compensated for it and i don't think that that's the the what we want well and since you you if you can remember paulette was the um
[Ron Giovino]: superintendent's office, the place that has a budget item that would allow for seminars and other type committees? And does it also include, there was that other one where you all go to, where you have a representative to the Mass Association of School Committees. Isn't there one person? Wasn't, didn't, what is?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Anne Marie Cuno?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, she was like on the board, right? Right, she was the board. So who determines that she can expense? Does that come from the superintendent's office?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, when you get to that level, the Mass Association of School Committee pays for those. So it's only for the local conference. And there's a day on the Hill conference as well. I mean, I certainly never put in for expenses. I think that it would be useful to articulate that the expenses regarding the annual conference would be reimbursed.
[Milva McDonald]: But I think I think being careful about putting details specifics like that is because what if that conference changed and then it wasn't, you know, and the chart is a charter is it's very difficult to change. It's not I think it's it's intended to be general.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So, okay, the only the opposite of that, though, is that in the general statement, the general statement as it is in way myth. Suggests that you could be reimbursed for any expense and there are great subject to appropriation and prior authorization.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't think we should put a limit on this. I don't think I don't think we should confine it. This is Phyllis.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, so should we just take, I mean, we don't have to include the paragraph at all.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, Paulette, is it business as usual that if you wanted to go to some special seminar somewhere, you would go to the superintendent or would you go to the mayor to get it appropriated that you would be reimbursed?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, if it's the school committee conference, it's discussed on the floor.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And it's always been that if you went, your expenses would be covered.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Eunice Browne]: Are there other conferences and stuff that they could avail themselves of?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, there are always things that you can go to. Right. But do they not have to have prior approval? Yeah. So a school committee, so they would, but prior authorization from who? That's my question.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, who generally has done it, Paula? Did you ever go to a conference that wasn't this one you're talking about in IANIS?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I did, but I paid for it myself.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay. But if you didn't pay for yourself, could you have been reimbursed? And if so, what would that process be?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, I don't honestly know, because I don't think it said anything and, you know, it just wasn't clear. And I don't know what other school committee members did.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, I think as long as that we put something in there that, you know, it needs authorization or prior approval.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, I'm also okay with the prior authorization, but this being broad, if there's prior authorizations, I think that will keep folks from... Yeah. It'll not be worth the time to go through all the paperwork to be reimbursed for a $5 school event or something.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Are we saying prior authorization from the superintendent, from the school committee?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, good question.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, we don't know who distributes the funds, so... Yeah. Well, what I'm saying is, so if I'm a school committee member and I go to the superintendent and say, hey, I want to go to this $1,000 or $2,000 thing out in San Francisco, OK, pay my expenses. Well, the superintendent doesn't want to piss me off. So they say yes. I'm just saying, and I'm being theoretical here, that you don't you don't want to put the superintendent. Now, maybe it's from prior authorization from the school committee as a whole.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Right. And it comes out of someone's budget. So someone would say, wait a minute, we're not the budgetary person here. We have to go here.
[Ron Giovino]: Exactly, and I think that this kind of ruling that they have to go to get pre-approval from the superintendent will force the superintendent to create a line item in her budget for such expenses. That's my guess. Then it would be up to the superintendent to release that money if it's her budget item.
[Eunice Browne]: But now to Paul, it's point of asking for something and the superintendent doesn't want to tick her off. Well, the superintendent works for the. Answers to. the school committee members. So that appears to be a bit problematic there.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, I have to say, and I may be naive, but it would be pretty terrible if the superintendent or a mayor would approve something because they didn't want to piss someone off. I mean, I hope we're past that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think it makes more sense to prior authorization from the school committee. Yeah, as a whole.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, first it says subject to appropriation. So there has to be an appropriation. And then prior, that's how I read it anyway.
[Ron Giovino]: Right, but what does appropriation mean? Do you have to go to the city council to get the bill paid?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, there is money in the school budget to cover professional development.
[Ron Giovino]: I just feel that giving the school committee the power to approve that expense is not, it's kind of a conflict there.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So I think we just leave off the paragraph. I agree. Yeah. If you look, I think it's the only one of the three that included it.
[Milva McDonald]: It is. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so let's just, we've discussed it, we're going to drop it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. Great. And I don't think it matters if you could go, Aubrey, if you could go back up to the green writing.
[Milva McDonald]: I think the only other difference I noticed was the Melrose had the line about the health and life insurance. Oh.
[Ron Giovino]: How does that work?
[Milva McDonald]: There must be some reason they put that in there.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And there's a good reason why we should include it in ours. Now, unless... unless something changes, because that has been an issue in the past in the school committee, and it needs to be spelt out. So I think that Melrose is the one that we should use.
[Ron Giovino]: Can I ask a question, Paulette? Yeah. Do your years of service on the school committee apply to a city pension at the end of your career?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, you know, Ron, that's such an interesting question. Because theoretically, maybe I should go ask that question. Yeah. Because I think it does. But I've never asked for myself, and I'm not collecting a pension at this point. So I think that there have certainly been others who have, and that it does.
[Milva McDonald]: I've been told that the city council gets a pension after 10 years. That's what I've been told.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. But you can also define years of service by different ways. I mean, you don't have to be a city councilor for 10 years. You could be a city councilor for five. You could be a crossing guard for three and a teacher for two. So I'm just wondering what those are and whether it's part of the purview of what we're talking about.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, it's an excellent question. I don't know. And I'm not quite sure who I would ask. Does anybody know?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. I haven't seen mention of pensions in any charters that we've looked at.
[Ron Giovino]: No, right. But it just came up because we're talking about health insurance and life insurance.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, the city has an HR person now. So yeah, that'd be the place to start.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, again, I assume there are established rules and laws that the city must abide by that when an employee starts at the city, they get the HR package. I would assume that. So until we know what people get and what they don't get, how do we know what they're eligible for or what they're not?
[Milva McDonald]: Obviously, Melrose did a deep dive in finding that out, but... Well, they did say notwithstanding any general or special law, to the contrary, so...
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And at some point, if we're talking about equity between our elected officers, health care is obviously a very big chunk. And city council, I mean, apart from the pay inequity that there was, the other inequity that has been longstanding was that city council was getting health insurance and school committee was not. Now, I'm not about to go suggest that school committee now gets health care even only, you know, this is a major issue, but I'm not sure that I'm going to be the one who's going to put it out there. Somebody will. Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, again, I mean, maybe this is way above our pay grades here, but I think we should not include that in what we're saying. If that's If that's the, I'm sure there are established employee benefits packages that, I mean, Paulette, you've been there for a long time, and you are unaware of those things, so.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So one of the things, right, because nobody ever told me.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, that's what I mean. It's kind of like.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And so at one point, When someone all of a sudden decided, a school committee member all of a sudden decided that they should get health insurance, they went and got it, and the rest of us had never asked and never got it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Wow.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: After that person left the school committee, I think somewhere it actually says that, no, you don't get health insurance. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: So yeah. Health insurance is based on hours. And how do you measure the hours a school committee person works? So, right.
[Eunice Browne]: So, and each one probably works a different amount of hours, right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But city council had, again, this seems to me to be something that either the larger committee is going to talk to, or we're going to talk to, you know, if we talk to about making a, uh, um, a committee within the city who's going to review the pay, the salary, that this would ultimately come up before that person or those people.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Was that an argument to not include it in the charter in case?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: On the other hand, part of me says, yeah, you should include it in the charter so that it's clear. Now, with that particular thing, what I can find out is whether where it's written that the school committee does not get health insurance. Okay, so that's a detail that I need to find out.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I'm just, I'm agreeing with what Aubrey said in that it's not, something that we know enough about to put into the charter at this point. It doesn't enhance what would happen. It doesn't take away from what would happen. We don't have the ability to say who's eligible and who's not eligible without doing a deep dive into how the city handles their employees, and that shouldn't be in this charter.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Do we think that there still is interest from the larger committee to craft language around how compensation should work for the mayor, the city council, and the school committee?
[Ron Giovino]: In terms of that advisory board?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I think that that's still on the table. I don't remember it being shot down.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, okay, so there's still an advisory board. Anyway, I think that we've covered the issues in this. I think we're taking out the expenses and we're taking out this. And the rest of the statements seems to be consistent.
[Ron Giovino]: And are we covering the mayor getting two salaries? Is that being okay? Are we gonna put that in there or just turn it?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think we need to add a clause with the exception of the mayor who will receive compensation both for his or her, or their mayoral duties and those of the school. Aubrey, can you find a place to put that?
[Ron Giovino]: So we're using the Melrose verbiage?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Go down to Pittsfield, I think. Oh, so that actually is under prohibitions. It's in the previous section. So we need to add a clause to prohibitions. That's where it was, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: OK. Yeah. Where it forbids to have two salaries.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That mayor, that the mayor.
[Ron Giovino]: With the exception of the mayor holding mayoral office and chairperson of the school committee.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It sounds good.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Okie dokie. Um.
[Ron Giovino]: And I think 1 of the challenges you have Paulette is that some of the stuff we're going to talk about will go out of the school committee and hit the city council and the mayor. In different ways, so. I think it's great that we come up with our opinion here, but that could be subject to change if the body of the whole wants to do something that impacts everybody else.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I totally agree.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Okay. So that's compensation. Now, I'm going to skip to, could we skip to 4.6, the filling of vacancies? Now, reading through the notes of the last meeting, it certainly sounds like you guys touched on this. The thing where it gets a little bit more complicated is when you've got Ward, when you've got people voted for by warts.
[Ron Giovino]: Or in our case, by double warts.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. Yeah. Or double warts. Double warts. Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So with that, I think that if we take the Melrose um, wording. The vacancy shall be filled. Um, shall be filled. Yeah, I think the next, um, highest risk of folks within the ward.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. What does it does it have an option when we run out of other candidates?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, it does have an option. So. Yeah, so so that's. So if it's by So when we say by ward, it's from the ward that the person creating the vacancy.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Descending order of votes received.
[Phyllis Morrison]: What happens if there's no one in that ward?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, that's the next step. The first step is there is someone. So if there is someone, it's by the next person in line. OK. OK. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. So that's now it's, OK, there is no person in that ward. OK.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There is no person in that ward. Is it going to be a person that's been elected in the city? We've got two, the potential.
[Ron Giovino]: I can remember clearly and distinctly reading this portion that when there is nobody next up and nobody wants it, you wait until you get somebody to do it. And I think that's Massachusetts law. You really couldn't ask somebody out of a ward to come in to take over that position.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So Ron, to my recollection.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: At our last meeting.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We had two different alternatives. One is eight wards, eight members. Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: Plus the mayor, right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Plus the mayor. So in that case, it's next, it's the next person in line.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. Okay. No, no, it wouldn't be the next person in line. It would be the next person in a ward.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. Next person in the ward in line. Right. If then there was nobody in the ward.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And then think about our recent with Melanie leaving. OK.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There's nobody in the war now behind her. Are you going to leave that spot?
[Ron Giovino]: All I can say, all I can say is, and I don't, I'm trying to find it in front of me, but in the Massachusetts general law, when they're talking about if next up is not available and there's nobody who runs for that position, it does not have an option other than to wait for that person, somebody to step up.
[Phyllis Morrison]: And what do they mean by step up?
[Ron Giovino]: become, so let's say we decide to go to four ward representative districts of two wards in each section, that would be four, then you'd have two at large, you'd have the mayor. So in one ward, if the ward says we don't have anybody, then the city would have to say to the ward, well, you need to come up with somebody who's going to be doing this. I think in that scenario is just only because if we're all in a room, somebody says, well, the only way we're going to get out of here is if one of you decide to be the leader. Well, then I think somebody would be the leader. But if I recall reading general laws, the mayor doesn't appoint somebody, doesn't come outside from another area. I think the worst case scenario is it's left blank.
[Phyllis Morrison]: And let me ask another question, Ron. Does that person who steps up have to be from that ward?
[Ron Giovino]: Yes.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay, all right.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes. Yeah, because you can't, once you start bringing people to be ward reps who aren't in the ward, you deteriorate the whole ward process.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, yeah. Well, I just wanted to know what the Massachusetts law said, yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, and I'm trying to find it here in my, I know I read it and I know that's, I was shocked when it said, you do nothing until somebody steps up.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I'm a little bit confused about what that step up would mean if it's not an election, though.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, because, well, you would, well, here's what you would be. If somebody leaves and there's no next stop person, the next person who got any votes, you would have to have an election. If nobody pulls papers to nominate to be elected, then somebody has to pull papers. And if it's one person that pulls the papers, they automatically get in.
[Maria D'Orsi]: So there is an election.
[Ron Giovino]: You wouldn't have an election when there's, there's no election when there's one person running. But if you, you know, the process, if you envision the process, this here's, here's our ward and nobody in our ward cares enough to want to do this. So you start looking for people and maybe you come up with two, three people, but the ability to not have to run a campaign. because you would just walk in is very enticing, I think, to find somebody. So I think that's why it's there. And to me, it kind of makes sense because if you start appointing people, it's not good. I would rather see an absentee slot than have somebody who's been appointed that doesn't represent or doesn't live in the ward, in my opinion.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah. No, I think it should be a person from the ward myself. Absolutely.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Okay, and so then you're left with the potential of a school committee which has an even number of people.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, you don't actually. You have a school committee that would assemble as if a seven-member committee would with one person not able to come, not attending. Right. It'd be a position.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Is there a tiebreaker vote? Right. That there is a VP?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, well, the chairperson has the tiebreaker vote, but in any case, Paulette, you would know in a case where two members are, you know, on vacation, not attending the meeting, as long as you have the quorum, the mayor would be in charge of being the final vote. If there were six people,
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, no, no, no, you're wrong. The mayor is a vote equal to, so if there's a, so now we're talking about eight members and someone leaves, so now there's seven members and the mayor. So your vote could easily be four to four. Now, the way that it goes in terms of Robert rules for order, if it's four to four, it loses, it doesn't pass.
[Ron Giovino]: Right, unless you open it for reconsideration.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, so that's just the way it would be. Okay, so that's scenario one, where we have eight wards, okay? Scenario two was that we had four wards and two school committee members at large. Now, next week, am I presenting the eight wards or am I presenting the four wards?
[Ron Giovino]: I thought we agreed to the four wards. the four wards plus two. Yeah, but you bring up an excellent point here, Paula, that makes me think that if a ward, if you're living in a ward and you run for at-large, and all of a sudden that ward becomes empty, would you have the ability to move from your at-large position to the ward position?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, that's a good question. Conceivably, you could.
[Ron Giovino]: I think we should cover that, because then you'd have an open at-large position, which would gather a lot more candidates.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: Interesting.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But maybe if someone doesn't want to give up their at-large position.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, you wouldn't have to be forced to do it, but it could be an option.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Or could it be that if there's nobody in that, so I ran for Ward 7, lost.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Or I ran out large lost. Somebody stepped down and word 7. I'm eligible to step into that word 7 slot.
[Ron Giovino]: Interesting. Yeah, I would think yes to that. Yeah, it's very complicated.
[Eunice Browne]: If we're proposing that the recommendation of this committee is. The 4 words, um. Then. Do we have to figure out how we're defining where those wards are? If that's something we're proposing to the larger group?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yes, but not as part of the charter, I think. It would be a separate commission.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, it wouldn't be us. It would be the clerks, the election commission would have to determine, does they have rules and guidelines from the Secretary of State to establish that?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, they do. OK. So guys, I think that I actually thought that we were presenting both next week, the eight and the four.
[Ron Giovino]: I thought what we were doing, you're right, Paulette, but we were also recommending the four. That's what I thought we did.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. In terms of thinking about that succession for the four, and Aubrey brought up a great point, I think that that is wordsmithing that I could work on this week. I can send it out to you guys, unless you think we can do it right now.
[Ron Giovino]: I think you have the concept, putting it in words.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I just think it's wordsmithing for replacement.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, and it would only be effective for the four double up ward reps that would matter. If you have eight, you can't do it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I understand where everybody's going.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, fair enough. Yeah. Okay. All right, that was good.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All right, now, That's filling a vacancy. Okay, Aubrey, now we need to go back to 4-5, which was the powers and whatever. Aubrey put together some language to combine the two. The document that I had provided, which was largely taken from the school committee policy handbook and some wording from the separate towns. I looked that over. There was one sentence, Aubrey, that you left out on the first part that I wanted to tell you is really critical to include. And that sentence is, if you were to go back to what I provided, which was on the top, It says, a voting majority of the school committee shall exercise the following powers and perform the following duties, and no individual member is empowered to act unless by the vote of the school committee. I truly believe that we should be including that sentence because- Can you just take me back from the beginning?
[Ron Giovino]: I'm lost as to what, maybe I need to see the verbiage.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so yeah, Aubrey, it was there on the first page. Well, you just had it on top. If you go after 5 and to the next paragraph, which says, a voting majority of the school committee shall exercise the following powers and perform the following duties, and no individual is empowered to act unless by a vote of the school committee. Aubrey simplified it to the powers and the duties of the school committee shall include. And I totally understand why she did that. But the reason why it's so important to say that sentence is because it's very important for the members of the school committee to understand that one of them alone is one of them alone and doesn't count. It only counts when you are a member of the body and there's a majority. And so I think that that sentence is an extreme, you know, no individual member is empowered to act, is a very important reminder to the members of the school committee that they only act as a body, not as an individual.
[Ron Giovino]: Paula, can you give me a hypothetical example of when that would happen, that one member would be able to do something, have the power to do something that they shouldn't do or should have approval for?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: What a member going out and making a statement to the public That's misleading. Okay. I guess, Ron, you're probably thinking, well, it's understood.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, no, I'm thinking that you have experienced this, that it's important to you as a school committee person. And I would follow whatever you advise. My question is, are we setting limitations that if I'm being called by a parent as a school committee person and they say, well, it looks like they're doing this or that, am I allowed to give my personal opinion?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So yes, let's suppose someone calls and they're upset about a certain thing happening. You can certainly talk to the parent and give your personal opinion, but you can't say, I'm going to make this happen.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So they've got a complaint about their kid not being put into the game.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. It's not appropriate.
[Ron Giovino]: But beyond conversation, is it possible in the current, without the statement being there, for a school committee member to call, for your example, call the head coach of Medford High School Baseball and say he's playing today? It's hypothetical completely, but is that what you're saying? They take action. It's not like if somebody calls me and says, I'm going to fix that, or I'm going to try to fix that. Is that, or is somebody like saying, I'm going to call Mr. X and say, you know.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: As a member of the school committee, I shouldn't be calling any coach at all. I should be going to the superintendent and saying, I have an issue. And the issue, and the superintendent should be resolving it from her point of view, not not from an individual member.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. So that's why you want the verbiage in here is what my point is. Got it. I support it.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I support it and added it as an example here. I think that it's also bounded because of the way it's written by the duties below. So it's not that you can't do anything ever, it's that you can't remove a superintendent on your own. You can't make reasonable rules and make them,
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Does it say something about speaking on behalf of the entire school committee?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No. It doesn't. But I think that's part of it. Speaking is an act. Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: OK.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think then under A, on the next paragraph, you should put selection, evaluation, and removal of a superintendent of the school's Who shall be charged with the admission, the administration of the school system? I want the word evaluation should be put in there. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Fair enough.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And then. The next, there was one other sentence which I would, on the next page, Aubrey.
[Eunice Browne]: Aubrey, can you make it a bit bigger, please? Thanks.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so on number, so it's C. And then subset B, unless a central municipal maintenance department, which may include maintenance of school building and grounds is established. I think that clause, unless a central municipal maintenance department, it should be taken out. And we could then add potentially augmented by city services or augmented by the city. I have to, I'm just trying to work out the sentence. What I was saying was, and let's see, shall provide ordinary maintenance of all school buildings and grounds, potentially augmented by city services, such as, but not limited to, snow plowing and trash removal.
[Unidentified]: Um, Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: Can I just wordsmith this quickly?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, absolutely.
[Ron Giovino]: Where it says that the school committee shall provide, I think it should say the school committee shall provide policies and procedures for ordinary maintenance because they're not grabbing brushes and brooms and doing it themselves.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, absolutely.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Ron Giovino]: It's provide policies and procedures for ordinary maintenance.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. And I think there's probably another sentence that needs to be, I think it needs to, I'm not sure it still reads as clearly as it should, but right now it's up there. It takes out, you know, There's a theoretical sentence in there which I'm taking out, and I'm putting in what we do. And while for many it doesn't make any difference, it does make a difference. I'm not trying to suggest, I don't want our charter to suggest that all of a sudden we're going to have a combined city services, and there's reasons, very clear reasons not to do that. At the same time, there's clearly cooperation between the city in providing resources, sorts of services. So anyway, sorry.
[Maria D'Orsi]: That sounds good. Can I go up and just look at the original model language where this came from?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Hey, Bob.
[Ron Giovino]: Paulette, is this the time where we put in that the school committee can make recommendation on names of school changes, but it's done by ordinance of the city council? Is that where we put this in?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That power has always been in the school committee hands, not the council hands.
[Ron Giovino]: I certainly understand. That's why we have Mississippi Tech School. We have Columbus Park at Mississippi Tech School.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK, over there, Paulette. Yeah, no, actually, I got a leg cramp. That's why I was grabbing my leg in agony down here.
[Ron Giovino]: No, you can always shut your camera off and take a walk and talk at the same time. OK.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I just thought it was Ron's jerk. What?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, so I probably should go get some water. But we're not that far. So all the other changes that Aubrey did provided, I thought were just fine.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah. I think you ladies are doing a great job. I'm just putting that right out there.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. So everything else Aubrey that you did was terrific. I know. And I'm being nitty gritty on a couple of things just from my experience. But otherwise, that all made sense to me. And so the happy news then is if people are in general agreement, and I still know there's a little bit of cleanup, but we're far enough along now that I can then take whatever, and we can put together in the beginning, we will have, you know, we can still provide the, we can do the four, I can write it with the four, and then I can write it just in case, have it back up as a presentation if people, you know, don't wanna do the four and two. But I'll write everything as if we're doing it the four and two, and everything else that we decided on last time around. I think that then we bring it to the committee. I think that there's likely to be changes because I think that we always want to be in step on these issues with the city council, so the compensation. There's still some questions around how that's going to work out. But everything else, and Ron, I did notice our next order of business having gone through this piece is we've held this long is the regarding community participation at school committee meetings. And I saw in the notes from the last meeting last Thursday that you suggested there should be a subcommittee to discuss this overall.
[Ron Giovino]: I did. It's actually on the April 18th agenda. And to me, you know, I just think if you have public participation, for one, you should offer it across the board. So whatever we decide in terms of, and believe me, school committee I understand is different. However, there's got to be a mechanism for people to find things to put on the agenda, ability to discuss in some kind of rules and guide. So it's on the agenda for the 18th. So I don't know.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. So I think that that's, you know, right now, the funny enough thing is that the wording of the two is not very different because I looked at the city council, I sent it out to you several months ago and said, you know, the thing is, because Eunice was saying, but it works different at the city council. And I was sort of saying it does. But frankly, if you look at the wording, the wording is the same. And so it's how it's being enacted. Although, of course, now in the months in between, people may have different opinions. So when we now make, so right now, I think on item number three on our agenda, discussion regarding community participation, I think that we're gonna put that into the larger discussion. Does that make sense to everybody?
[Adam Hurtubise]: It does.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so on the 18th now, we've promised to make a, a presentation, so I will go back through the work we did this week, and the work we did this, and make one document. And then, Aubrey, I'm going to send it to you, and you're going to post and do something so we can post it, okay?
[Eunice Browne]: You're going to do something and put it somewhere.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, I will try and do it early enough. I will tell you right now, I do have an emergency in my family, and I'm a little nervous about it. Anyway, big emergency. So I will try and get to this and put it up and send it to you guys just so you can read it through collectively. Now, I did want to ask you whether you think We need to go back and post that whole, remember we made that whole chart about pros and cons and whatever. Do we need to bring that to the committee or do we need to say we went through all these options and this is what we think is best?
[Maria D'Orsi]: I like the second option and we can make, because it's been on Google Drive.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah.
[Maria D'Orsi]: That can be available.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I mean, I'm not necessarily trying to open up the debate.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Everything all over again. And if we bring that list, we could be opening up the debate. I think that there is still we're leaving a little leeway for the one from each ward for whatever.
[Ron Giovino]: Well I think that's going to be the the most challenging part of what we're presenting is the folks will have opinions on that and I agree I don't think you should put up a pros and cons because we've certainly have all done our homework in terms of what the other options are so when people are asking questions we'll be able to Everybody here is capable of presenting how we got to that point. So I'm with you. I think we should, what Aubrey said is present what we like and explain it as much as they need explanation to, but hopefully they would understand it.
[Eunice Browne]: I think we just have it in our back pocket in case we need some sort of backup. But no sense opening the can of worms. If there's a big debate about it, it's good to have the documentation that we've put together. But I think we can state our case without it.
[Maria D'Orsi]: If folks have questions, we can refer to it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so I think then that what we're doing is we're presenting this section of the charter, the section 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, and 4.6, as we worked out to the committee of the whole. And my job will be to send it to you in the next two or three days, and then so we can send it out to the whole committee by Monday.
[Ron Giovino]: The sending to everybody I get, we are not allowed to discuss. The only thing we're allowed to discuss once it's out there is we can change punctuation. We can change grammar. We can't discuss, oh, I want to go back to eight ward reps. We can't. Nobody is allowed to. You're not allowed to have a discussion through email at all.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Do you think, I mean, should I send it out to the whole?
[Ron Giovino]: I wouldn't. I wouldn't for that reason.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, okay. So you would just send it out to you guys for review purposes?
[Ron Giovino]: To make sure it's nice and neat for our presentation. We only have 30 minutes on the agenda. So my opinion is I don't like the fact that they would get to read it without hearing or being able to ask questions right away and form opinions on things without having us there to guide them. So I would say that we should all see it to make sure the presentation looks what we want it to be, but we can't change what the, you know, the, the meat of what is in there, and I would keep it from the group until we meet on the 18th.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I think with the city council, I remember we had two sessions. So one was we talked through it, and then the next one we voted.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right. That's possible, too. Yeah, that's possible.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So the only thing I want to be really clear on, when I write this up, am I writing it up as four wards and two at large?
[Ron Giovino]: Correct.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. Do I give them the eight ward potential at all?
[Ron Giovino]: No, I think we would have it. I just don't. I think our presentation should be that. And that's the biggest part of the presentation is the decision to go from eight wards down to four double wards. I think that's a big. And in that presentation, you're going to have that option. We looked at the eight wards and decided instead to go to a So they'll have that option.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I will probably have paragraphs separately, depending on the discussion that we can reel out or not. But we'll start our discussion with the four awards.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I know this is, oh, the next thing is community participation. Do we have any community participation? I don't see anybody here. I don't see anything, any. So can you believe it? We're going to end our meeting.
[Ron Giovino]: This was a great meeting. I thought we really did a lot of damage.
[Eunice Browne]: I think what we've come up with is, I mean, there was nothing in the charter about school committee charter to begin with. So anything that we came up with was better than what we had. But the fact that we came up with all that we did over the course of five or six or four or five meetings, however it was, and I think what we've got, In comparison to the three charters that we were provided by the Collins Center, and I know some others that I've looked at, and maybe many others of us have also looked at, I think ours is, particularly in the powers and duties part, is leaps and bounds better. And that is, We've been fortunate through the whole process to have Paulette here, who has given us so much. And Phyllis, as an educator as well, you've been able to chime in in a few places that have been very advantageous as well. to have Paulette's experience for her many years on the school committee. As you said, last meeting, it's pretty clear that whoever wrote the samples that we got, nobody had ever served on a school committee. So we've got a hell of a lot more than Any of the other charters that we've had to look at.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The other thing which I've particularly appreciated this is movement. I appreciate that some of us disagreed and we moved. And then in another case, some of us had disagreed and we moved back. And so while it's not, you know, maybe what everybody wanted all the time, that the spirit of compromise and understanding is alive in our subcommittee. And believe me that in these days, I so appreciate that.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, one of the things I'd like to say, Paula, too, is that even though we disagreed on things, you know, sometimes when I disagree with someone and I listen back to them, I find out information that I might not have had in this little pea brain of mine. And it does make a difference. It does. That's why I like these discussions. That's why I think they're so valuable. I don't have all of the information. I don't have a lot of back experience that some people might have on these committees. So I'm actually learning a great deal, too, while I'm engaging in these committees. And to me, that's just like, I know it sounds hokey, but it's a win-win for me.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, that's great. OK, so it's 741. It's 19 minutes early.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my evening. Oh my god, what will we do? Go ahead.
[Ron Giovino]: Let's create maybe we can create a subcommittee for a 19 minute subcommittee.
[Eunice Browne]: I'm definitely going to disagree with you there. Let's go to bed early.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All done.
[Phyllis Morrison]: All right. Take care, everybody. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right.
[Eunice Browne]: See you next week. Good night. Bye.
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