One item normally considered early in the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board is the consent agenda. In my more than 10 years of covering this board, this has nearly always been a routine item on the board agenda. Only in recent months have there been long discussions about items on the consent agenda.
At Wednesday’s regular session, Board Member Brad Boyer apparently objected to an item, part of the Consent Agenda, on the Accounts Payable Voucher Register, a line item for a $152,825 payment to Panorama Education, funding the Panorama Survey.
That sparked a debate among the board members, with Boyer and Suzanne Thomas objecting to the Panorama Survey and other board members voicing their support.
The next controversy was also with the consent agenda, this time Thomas raised concerns about one personnel action that was listed on that agenda item. “There is a situation that I don’t support and this is why I am not in support of the consent agenda,” Thomas said.
Personnel actions are normally discussed in executive sessions held privately by the board, as provided in the Indiana Open Meetings Law.
Although no specific mention was made about which personnel item was being questioned, Boyer provided a hint of his concern.
“Can we talk a little bit about, from a philosophical point of view…how we approach folks who take on extra responsibilities and paying extra, paying for those, and doing that work, maybe not paying people when they aren’t doing the job…how do we approach that?” asked Boyer.
“I think I would ask you to consider what statements you want to make and how that may effect morale for our employees,” Board President Julie Chambers responded. “I think you should consider that we have (executive) sessions at times where we assess personnel and compensation.”
After an extended discussion on the Panorama Survey and the one unnamed personnel action item, the Consent Agenda was approved on a 5-2 vote, with Boyer and Thomas voting no.
When Thomas asked if the Consent agenda could be broken-up into separate votes, Board President Chambers responded that advance notice is needed to separate parts of the consent agenda into separate votes. That is why the entire consent agenda was up for a vote Wednesday night.