Yet Another Unsatisfied Ray and Associates Customer

Now, stop me if you've heard this one before...

...but there is yet another school board out there feeling just a little burned by the advice they received from Ray & Associates - the same search firm whose assurances lead Kentucky's Board of Education down the primrose path with Barbara Erwin. The same firm being sued by the state of Kentucky. (Backstory)

In Loveland Colorado Board member Marcia Venzke said Ray and Associates asked the members “to have a straw vote right off the bat,” which she did not favor.

On Wednesday, Venzke said, “It wasn’t really a straw vote. It was a forced matrix ... you compared one person to the other, like No. 1 compared to No. 2 — would you pick 1 or 2?”

Ray and Associates asked board members to do that for the semifinalists and finalists, Venzke said.

Following that advice did at least two things: It divided the board members and it broke Colorado's Open Meetings law. Now attorney's and the public are pouring over 12 hours of audio tape. (available at the Reporter-Herald)

“It became obvious how we voted,” Venzke said. “When people are advocating for who they believe will be the best candidate, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to count up where people are.”

Any discussion behind closed doors of a specific vote, a straw poll, or a concensus would be illegal under the Colorado Open Meetings Law.

This from the Reporter-Herald:

[School District Board of Education member Karen Stockley] and several other board members said that although they did not want to make a scapegoat out of the national executive search firm they hired, they do believe some of the problems sprang from the way the firm handled the interview and decision process.

“I personally feel we were misled” by Ray and Associates, the Iowa-based search firm, Stockley said. “We put a lot of trust in them. ... We were following the process they put in front of us, and I would assume they’ve been doing this for many years. I can’t imagine the laws are that much different from Colorado’s.”

Board treasurer Lola Johnson said that at the start of the superintendent search, board members felt the only way they could do a successful search was to hire an outside company because no one on the board had any experience in hiring a superintendent.

“There were times when (Ray and Associates) led us down the wrong path,” Johnson said.

“They told us some things had to be confidential because candidates had not told their employers they were applying. ... I was uncomfortable and questioned it all along. It’s gotten us into a situation we didn’t expect, and we all feel badly.”

Stockley agreed. “It’s frustrating that we are accused of doing illegal things when we spent so many hours away from our lives and our families to do something we thought was great for the district,” she said...

And this:

...The tapes reveal that board members or representatives of Ray and Associates may have contacted Cabrera and Zila by phone more than once before the Feb. 24 meeting to discuss the logistics of their split vote. Of concern was whether either candidate would take the position, knowing that several board members would be voting against him.

“We were trying to determine if the candidates knew not everyone was in favor of them,” Steiner said Wednesday. “We worked with Ray and Associates, and followed a process that I don’t know was the best process.”

Platt said that legally, any discussion regarding applicants for public employment needs to be held in public session.

“Discussions regarding applicants for public employment are not among those permitted to be held in executive session,” Platt said. “As a result, this discussion and these phone calls needed to occur in open session.” ...