After Much Delay School Board Names Committee Members

By Teresa Rochester

In March the Santa Monica City Council presented the Board of Education with a straightforward opportunity: Establish a Financial Oversight Committee and receive a $2.1 million bailout grant.

On Thursday, the Board of Education did just that, ending a months-long process marred with delays, squabbling and controversy.

Board members appointed seven members to the committee that will be charged with reviewing district financial practices and data and making recommendations to the school board.

The committee will consist of three former members of the district's Financial Task Force Advisory Council. They are RAND Vice President Michael Rich, prominent land use attorney Chris Harding and Babette Heimbuch.

Other committee members include Craig Hamilton, who discovered a $1 million district shortfall earlier this year, former school board member Patricia Hoffman, Nancy Ong and Gloria Reisner.

Despite some reservations the board also agreed to embark on a search for an eighth committee member from Mailbu, at the insistence of board member and Malibu resident Pam Brady, to round out the group that consists of Santa Monica residents.

Board members pointed out that only Santa Monica residents applied for the volunteer committee, whose members must have expertise in finance, management and/or law and will serve staggered three-year terms.

"I certainly concur with the notion that the ideal would be to have a Malibu representative on the committee," said board member Julia Brownley. "My concern is that we advertised and we didn't receive any applications from Malibu."

"There's nothing magical about the number seven," said Board President Todd Hess, also a Malibu resident. "We can leave a 90-day period open and add someone from Malibu."

Since March, when the process for creating a committee got underway, the board has faced a number of obstacles getting the group off the ground. Squabbles over specific and implied language about the public process and the nature of the committee often ended in deadlocked and delayed votes by the board.

More recently, in a series of emails, board member Dorothy Chapman questioned the openness of the process of selecting candidates, which called for board members to email their top seven choices to the board president.

Chapman sought the advice of Terry Francke, an expert in the Brown Act (the state's open meeting law), who based on Chapman's description of the process found it to be in violation of the law. Francke referred to the process as "virtual voting."

At Thursday night's meeting however, Brady reported that the district's legal council found the process to be acceptable. Board members pondered whether or not to change the process to avoid confusion among the public.

"I think it [confusion] has happened enough times that we should look at the process and possibly change it," said Brady.

Board member Brenda Gottfried responded: "People get confused for political reasons. I wouldn't be opposed to looking at it again but it's not broke."

In other action the board began to hash out the process of selecting a new superintendent. Dr. Neil Schmidt, who has headed the district for the past eight years, announced in May that he will retire in June 2001. It is also expected that Assistant Superintendent for Financial and Business Services Art Cohen will retire at the same time.

"The board needs to take charge," said Hess. "It's not too early to have these discussions. This is an extremely important position. These positions are extremely important to the school board and therefore to the community."

Board members agreed that the process, as it has in the past, will include opportunities for the public to interview potential candidates and also will involve the district's teachers and service unions. The search will most likely be a national one.

Harry Kiely, the teachers union new president, also unveiled the unions contract proposal for the 2000-2001 school year. The proposed contract calls for a 12 percent salary increase and a limit on the required number of committee assignments and other meetings.

The union also wants to improve the size of special education class size. The state currently has no provisions on how large those classes should be.