Since posting our article on the Jeffco School Board’s less than transparent decision to hire an attorney to represent the board, members of the Jeffco PTA Board of Directors as well as troubled parents and community members from across the county have received the same form letter reply from the Jeffco School Board in response to their concerns regarding the attorney hire.
We have been contacted by many of these parents, who have expressed anger not only about the use of the form letter itself but about its very misleading content. You may view a copy of this letter here.
Let’s take the response letter line by line. The board writes: Item 10.05 was placed on the agenda on Monday, December 9 after the Board became aware of the resignation of the district’s Chief Legal Counsel. The Board became aware of this resignation at the CASB conference the weekend of December 7, and maintaining legal representation through the transition became an immediate priority.
This is disingenuous at best. Historically, the district and the board have shared legal counsel unless separate counsel was legally necessary such as in the case of teacher dismissals. As our superintendent stated at the board table the night of December 12, the school board had legal representation from the law firm retained to handle legal work for the district. There was never any danger whatsoever of our school board being without legal representation.
The school board writes: Each board member had the opportunity to interview and conduct research on the law firms of Miller Sparks, LLC and Halpern Meacham prior to the board meeting
Lisa Cook’s December 14th piece on Examiner.com points out that, “Witt had apparently given board members John Newkirk and Julie Williams prior notice of his intentions and both had contacted the two candidates.” Board members Lesley Dahlkemper and Jill Fellman were given only 48 hours notice, via email, of the intent to hire a board attorney. However, we invite you to view the video of the vote to retain Miller Sparks here and judge for yourself.
Next from the board: the decision was in full compliance with C.R.S. § 24-6-402 (aka “the Colorado Sunshine Law”). The public was also invited to comment via an on-line signup process.
Conducting interviews with these attorneys in secret, discussion of attorneys and firms without including all board members, refusing to follow a proper Request for Proposal process and to discuss cost or contract publicly is hardly in compliance with C.R.S. § 24-6-402. You can read the law here.
The public saw the attorney hire discussion on the agenda (note the agenda was amended to add the item two days prior to the meeting, not three as the board claims) but without knowing the board intended to forego a formal RFP process or being made aware the decision had already been made without any public discussion, it is unreasonable, unfair, and wrong to claim the public had ample, much less any, opportunity to comment or weigh in on the decision.
The board letter continues: On December 12, the Board voted to retain Miller Sparks, LLC as legal counsel on a month-to-month basis. An engagement letter was signed on December 13, 2013 and annual cost to the district is estimated at $90,000 (for comparison purposes, the district’s outgoing Chief Legal Counsel represented an annual expense of $150,783 plus benefits).
Allen Taggart, the Chief Legal Counsel in question, whose official title was Executive Director of Employee Relations, served a dual role. The individual with this title manages employee issues that affect 12,000 employees, contractual obligations, issues with regard to the needs of special education students, and any employee misconduct. That individual also manages outside legal counsel, provides legal advice to the board and staff, and monitors legal fees along with the superintendent.
Any claims or implications that the board hired a replacement for Mr. Taggart and is therefore saving the school district money are false. The truth is the retainer of Miller Sparks is an additional cost to our school district that is not provided for in the 2013 – 2014 budget. The employment of this additional counsel will, in fact, increase legal fees by a retainer in the contract listed as $7,500 per month. If full payment is made, that increases legal fees by a minimum of $90,000 per year.
If our research on Miller Sparks holds true, we fear the cost will far exceed $90,000 a year. For example, last year the Falcon School District, whose school board also retains Miller Sparks, paid the law firm $450,000. (We are still trying to ascertain the full scope of Miller’s work in Falcon). And let us not forget that Miller Sparks is located in Colorado Springs so Jeffco taxpayers will foot the bill every time Mr. Miller travels to Jefferson County.
So we must ask the question. How will spending a minimum of $90,000 up to a potential half million dollars to retain an attorney – when the previous board needed to hire a separate attorney only once in two years – benefit our 85,000 children? How will this better their education? Where will the money in our already tight budget come from to pay for this attorney?
The board writes: It is common practice for school boards to retain the services of an attorney, particularly when a new board is seated and a superintendent search is underway.
This is a patently false statement. It is, in reality, extremely UNCOMMON for a school board to retain the services of its own separate counsel on any sort of ongoing basis, even when a superintendent search is underway. Our Jeffco Board of Education has never in its history employed its own ongoing legal counsel.
From Alicia Caldwell’s Denver Post article: “First of all, it’s strange that school board members would even hire their own lawyer. Usually the district’s lawyer advises the administration and the board on everyday legal issues. Every now and then, a school board will seek its own representation to avoid conflicts of interest, but it’s not frequent and it certainly hasn’t been routine procedure in Jeffco.”
Further, on KBDI’s December 20th airing of Colorado Inside Out, panelist David Kopel, of The Independence Institute said, “I don’t think any school district ought to be paying some lawyer lobbyist $90,000 a year for communications and political consulting.”
Finally from the board: The scope of the Jeffco board attorney’s work will include matters ranging from best practices, governance, rules of order, liability, education law, and other areas of interest relevant to school boards.
As columnist Greg Romberg stated in his article in The Canyon Courier, “…the scope of work [for the attorney] includes things that have no business being done by outside counsel instead of by district staff. It is ridiculous to waste taxpayer dollars to pay an outside attorney and unknown cost to assist with things like agendas, board packets, staffing issues and communication. Similarly, a retainer agreement for $7,500 per month for up to 30 hours of service means taxpayers are on the hook for the total amount regardless of how little service is rendered.”
While, in defense of the new board majority, some claim our district has exorbitant legal costs, the truth is Jeffco Schools has, historically, monitored and controlled legal fees. Jeffco employs one small firm to manage truancy and court issues involving students. Those services are specialized and designed to create success for our most At-Risk students. A second specialized firm handles all other legal work for Jeffco ranging from student issues to constitutional issues to litigation. As any business would understand, when a corporation has 12,000 full and part time employees, over 150 sites, and 85,000 direct clients [students], that corporation must have sound legal guidance. Each department in Jeffco has a legal budget that they are expected to manage carefully and, if departments exceed that budget, then they review their expenses with the superintendent who manages a “legal contingency”. As any business knows, some years legal expenses exceed those in other years. Generally, the majority of the contingency is returned to the general fund. Jeffco Schools also has a monthly report that is presented to the board and to the superintendent from the outside firm so that legal fees are totally transparent.
The retainer of Miller Sparks is not included in the district’s legal budget. So, we ask again, how will we pay for this $90,000 to possible $450,000? Will our children lose two or many more teachers in order for the board to have its own, unnecessary, legal counsel? We don’t know because this information has not been disclosed to the public.
The superintendent began a hiring process for a new Executive Director of Employee Relations upon notification of the retirement of Allen Taggart. Hiring of this position has always been assigned to the superintendent and these hires have always been subject to the approval of the school board in a transparent manner.
Any statements to the contrary or that claim the hire of Miller Sparks was somehow more transparent than past legal hires are meant to deceive the public and direct attention away from the negative press the Jeffco School Board is receiving over this decision, and nothing more.
JANUARY 16 BOARD MEETING
The next Board of Education meeting takes place at Arvada High School, 7951 W. 65th Avenue, Arvada, 80004. The board will meet in the auditorium for a study session at 5:30 p.m. (which the public is free to attend and observe) and continue with their regular meeting (which includes public comment) at 6:30 p.m.
You can visit the district’s website for meeting updates and agendas here and sign up for public comment here. Email the board at board@jeffco.k12.co.us.
Like Jeffco PTA on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for further information as it becomes available.
*This article was written with input from and posted with the approval of members of the Jeffco PTA Board of Directors and Executive Committee – Republicans, Democrats, and Unaffiliated voters alike.*
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