Vote again denies pay for Waterford Graded board

By Tracy Ouellette

Staff Writer

By a greater than 2-to-1 margin, a crowd of more than 100 Waterford Graded School District residents voted April 22 to keep their school board members’ pay frozen at zero for the 2012-13 school year.

The no-pay issue was brought back to citizens for a re-vote Monday night at a special meeting called for that sole purpose.

The board’s pay was originally eliminated Oct. 22 at the district’s annual meeting, where member salaries are voted on every year.

Last month, some board members voiced concern that the October vote didn’t truly represent what the public wants, but rather was a vote taken by only a handful of special education students’ parents unhappy with the board’s attempt to withdraw Waterford Graded from the Waterford Special Education Cooperative.

One such parent is Carlene Chavez, who put forward the original motion in October to reduce the board’s pay to nothing. She stood up Monday night and again put forth a motion to keep the board’s pay at zero.

An amendment to that motion was brought to the floor by another resident, Nick Zeliski, who asked that the board’s pay be reinstated at its former level.

Some bickering then ensued over the implications of Robert’s Rules of Order between audience members; Jim Hutchison, who served as the meeting’s chairman; and Waterford Graded Board President Dan Jensen, with Hutchison finally asking Jensen: “Would you like to run the meeting yourself?”

The motion, with the amendment, then proceeded to discussion. Community members spoke for and against reinstating the board’s pay, including one who asked the audience: “How many of you would want to do your job for no pay?”

But Chavez said she stands by the decision to eliminate salaries for the Waterford Graded board, and further questioned whether board members had the best interests of the children at heart.

Waterford Graded board member Bob Kastengren, who later that evening at a separate meeting was voted in as the new Waterford Graded board president (replacing Jensen), urged residents to reinstate the board’s pay.

He cited the community’s long-standing tradition of paying area school board members a salary.

He went on to say that he was not in town for the October vote and when he returned, he was “dismayed that about a dozen residents stripped the board of its pay.”

Kastengren said he felt that action was one of retribution by a small group.

Waterford High School outgoing board member Jim Graff, who nominated Hutchison to chair the special meeting, had several questions for the board.

Graff demanded to know how much money was spent on attorneys fees by the board when it asked the district’s administrator, Chris Joch, to investigate how to get the members’ salaries back.

When Joch told Graff he didn’t have those figures “off the top of my head,” Graff replied: “Go to your office and get it. We’ll wait.”

Joch did not go to his office.

Joch said Tuesday via email that the total attorneys fees were just under $3,000 for “consultation, research and documentation preparation” in regard to the board pay issue.

Graff also wanted to know Monday night if pay checks given to board members before the October annual meeting (which would be for one-quarter of their annual $3,400 salary, or $850 each) had been returned once the electors voted for no board pay.

The board members said they had not paid back that money to the school district.

Joch said Tuesday that the board is going on the idea that the checks are paid out from annual meeting to annual meeting and since the board was paid before October’s annual meeting, these checks don’t need to be returned.

Graff questioned the board’s priorities and actions.

“Until the board demonstrates it is focused on the children, they don’t deserve their pay. Seems the focus is about money for you and no money for the kids,” Graff said.

Board member Paul Beyerl began his three minutes of allotted speaking time with a thinly veiled slam against Graff, who lost his seat on the high school board to Jensen in the April 2 election.

Beyerl said the voters had spoken and had found certain members of the high school board to be “no longer useful.” His statement drew several gasps and negative comments from the audience.

Beyerl continued to speak, focusing on post-employment retirement benefits for Co-op employees that Chavez alluded to earlier in the meeting.

Beyerl defended the Waterford Graded board’s position about those benefits, complaining about not getting needed information from the high school superintendent, Keith Brandstetter, and waving a piece of paper with what looked like a spreadsheet on it as an example of what he was talking about.

Soon, some residents began complaining loudly that Beyerl wasn’t staying on topic since the meeting was only about board pay and commenting that Beyerl wasn’t even making sense.

When all was said and done and the vote taken, the numbers were 73 in favor of keeping no pay; 33 in favor of paying a salary.

Beyerl abstained from voting. All four of the other Waterford Graded board members voted in favor of getting paid.

But they’ll have to wait until next October to try and get their wish, when the board pay issue next comes up for a vote at the district’s next scheduled annual meeting.