Saturday, June 02, 2007

Erwin contract stalled

ST. CHARLES -- School board officials Friday conducted their third closed-door meeting this week to discuss Superintendent Barbara Erwin’s contract and the departing administrator’s future with the district.

The nearly three-hour executive session ended without a decision to ratify Erwin’s amended contract, which was signed in April 2005 but is mired in controversy over whether it was approved by the board in an open session.

The Friday morning meeting conflicted with the work schedules for three of the seven board members. Some members arrived late, stepped out to answer phone calls or left to go back to work. Hewell said she hasn’t ruled out taking a vote even if the full board wasn’t present, but Friday’s bare-minimum quorum didn’t suffice.

The board's fourth meeting could take place as soon as June 8th.

This from the Kane County Chronicle:

School board President Kathleen Hewell declined to comment on what happened during Friday’s meeting or say what is preventing the board from taking a public
vote on the issue.

“This meeting just took longer than we thought,” Hewell said.

Time doesn’t factor into the equation, Hewell said, because the district has been enforcing the contract extension since the amendment was attached to Erwin’s contract on April 11, 2005.

Hewell acknowledged that crediting Erwin the 85 sick days in 2005 and 2006
was what was enforcing the contract.

“Our legal counsel says we have been operating under the contract ever since it was approved by the board,” Hewell said. “We’re [reinforcing the contract] in order to clear up any questions that were posed by [former president] Bobbie Raehl.”

The Kane County state’s attorney’s office is reviewing Raehl’s claim that the board never voted on the amended contract in open session. If there was no public vote, the board might have violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

State’s Attorney John Barsanti said there was no time frame for the investigation to be completed.

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