Unanimous vote gives superintendent 3-percent raise
No debate, no Meiklejohn, one threat of litigation
By Chris Busby
The Portland School Committee voted unanimously tonight, with no internal debate and one member absent, to grant Superintendent Mary Jo O’Connor a three-percent raise. At the start of her new three-year contract in July, O’Connor, the highest-paid public employee in Portland, will earn a salary of $111,959.
School board member Ben Meiklejohn, whose motion to halve the size of the pay hike during the board’s Nov. 30 meeting unleashed a flurry of partisan bickering, was absent from tonight’s meeting due to a previously scheduled professional commitment. Reached afterward, he said he would have voted against the three-percent raise.
After the board’s fractious Dec. 7 meeting, new board Chairwoman Ellen Alcorn moved the date of the next meeting, originally scheduled for Dec. 21, to tonight. She also arranged to have school department legal counsel Harry Pringle brief the board prior to its vote on O’Connor’s raise. Pringle discussed state laws governing closed-door board meetings and meetings between board members outside official meetings.
The only fireworks came when Alcorn said there would be no public comment taken before the vote on the raise, because O’Connor’s salary is a “personnel item.” Steven Scharf, the city government watchdog who heads the Portland Taxpayers Association, challenged Alcorn on the motion to forgo comment.
“I consider this motion out of order,” Scharf shouted from the nearly empty gallery.
“No, you’re out of order,” Alcorn countered from the dais.
“Fine, I’ll sue,” Scharf said before sitting back down.
In a post-meeting discussion with Pringle, Scharf said he was told the decision to offer an opportunity for public comment rests with the board, and is not a requirement of state law.
In a subsequent interview with The Bollard, Scharf said he was still researching the matter and had not ruled out legal action.
When the three-percent raise was first presented to the board on Nov. 30, then-chairman Jonathan Radtke offered an opportunity for public comment. No one spoke, though Scharf was in attendance at that meeting.
At the Dec. 7 meeting, Scharf insisted there be an opportunity for public comment before the board voted to go into executive session, saying it was required by state law. Alcorn relented, though Scharf later conceded he’d found no such requirement in state law.
The officially non-partisan school board is currently split between members of the Democratic and Green Independent parties, with Democrats in a five-four majority. The past several votes on the superintendent’s salary have split along party lines, as did the voting during a Nov. 30 caucus to choose new board leadership.
Looking back on the partisan fracas, Meiklejohn, an at-large representative who in 2001 became the first Green elected to the board, said “we’ve got to do a better job separating feelings and emotions from actual reason when it comes to votes.” He said he felt the past two weeks had been “a good learning process” for the board to do that.
“That’s how I hope we’re [the Greens] changing politics in the city of Portland,” Meiklejohn said. “It’s not about how people feel about each other. It’s about the taxpayers.”
Meiklejohn said he is disinclined to support any increase in the school budget this year. He also challenged Democrats on the board to bring new ideas and initiatives to the table. “It seems like a lot of what they’re doing is trying to stop us from making progress,” he said. “They were elected to do something – not elected to do nothing other than stop other people who were elected from doing things.”
