TUSD Tech Crash Raises Questions, AG Investigating

On August 11, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office wrote a letter to the Tucson Unified School District’s attorney advising that an investigation of Open Meeting law violations had been initiated. On August 13, TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez notified Board members that “upload was done with the email system” that caused a “disconnect of many email accounts.

According to Sanchez, the upload left “those users without email access or access to other resources” including the Board’s secretary. As late as August 17, Sanchez informed the Board that the “issue appears to be 15 year old legacy software,” but claimed “we are still verifying.”

The glitch has some wondering about the timing and the true nature of the technical difficulty. Board member Michael Hicks, who makes his living teaching computer science, questioned the claim that a software upload could affect the servers. Especially says Hicks after the District just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars moving to a new service provider.

Emails would be at the core of a thorough investigation by the Attorney General’s Office. It was Board member Cam Juarez’s statement that fellow Board member Dr. Mark Stegeman check his email during a discussion of Sanchez’s new employment contract that is the basis of one of the five violations under investigation.

In a letter to constituents, Stegeman explained the situation:

On June 9 the board voted to increase the superintendent’s compensation for the previously agreed contract years 2014-15 (ends on June 30) and 2015-16 (begins on July 1) and to extend the contract by two years. The 2014-16 raises were in addition to the performance bonuses agreed in the original contract. I learned of the proposed contract terms only a few hours before the vote, and the district blocked public discussion of the details until after the vote. The raise for year 2014-15 was cancelled on the next day, following objections from TUSD’s legal counsel.

The June 9 board agenda included “Superintendent’s Contract” as an Action item, without details. I had no additional information until an Executive Session held just before the public meeting. Other board members may have known more: Juarez said during the public meeting that the board had received a draft of the new contract a month before. He backtracked a minute later, so now it is unclear who knew what and when they knew it.

On June 19, Board President Adelita stated on an obscure radio show: “I think that Dr. Sanchez had an opportunity to speak to us during our [private] 1-on-1’s to see if this was something that we wanted to move forward, because nobody wants to put a contract out there and not have support to move forward…”

So, clearly they had discussed the issue. It is what, when, and who knew about the contract before the vote and how they came to know about it that is at issue. If members of the Board communicated to Sanchez about the contract, was it a serial communication? If so, that would be a violation. The Board secretary would likely have emails related to that issue.

According to Hicks, the public cannot be sure that emails are still on the servers. Hicks says the superintendent has not been forthcoming with answers.

The Attorney General’s letter outlines all of the alleged violations. It reads in part:

The complaints raise the following issues, which if true, could constitute violations of the Open Meeting Laws:

1) That a quorum of the Board discussed a contract relating to the School District Superintendent outside the presence of the public prior to the Board meeting held on June 9, 2015.

2) That a quorum of the Board has had other discussions regarding Board business outside of publicly noticed meetings, including possibly at a National School Board Conference attended by a quorum of the Board members held in Tennessee.

3) That members of the Board have improperly disclosed confidential information regarding discussions held during the Board’s executive sessions, specifically regarding discussions about the Superintendent contract discussed at the June 9, 2015 meeting.

4) That during the November 18, 2014 Board meeting, the Board engaged in a discussion of teacher salaries even though the issue was not noticed on the agenda for that meeting.

5) A.R.S. § 38-431.01 (D) requires a public body to post either minutes or a recording of the public body’s meeting within 3 days of the meeting. The Board appears to be in compliance with this requirement. However, one complaint raises a question as to whether the recordings the Board posts sufficiently apprise the public of the events that occur at the meetings. The issue raised is that it is difficult to tell who is speaking or making motions or how the members are voting on the tapes. Without this knowledge the complainant alleges that the public is not sufficiently informed of the meeting events.

In order for me to determine whether there has been a violation of the Open Meeting Law, please provide me with a copy of the following items:

1. Please provide a copy of the Meeting Notices, Agendas and Minutes (including Executive Session Minutes) for the November 18, 2014 and June 9, 2014, Board meetings.

2. Please provide written and attested statements from each of the Board members that addresses whether they have ever discussed, proposed or taken legal action regarding a matter pending before the Board, or likely to come before the Board, outside of a properly noticed Board meeting when a quorum of the Board was present. As part of the statement have them specifically address whether they had any such discussions regarding the June 9, 2015 Superintendent contract issue. In addition, for those who attended the School Board Conference in Tennessee, please have them address whether any such discussions, proposals or actions occurred while at the conference. I have attached an attestation form to be used with the statements.

3. Please address the issue of whether the audio recordings sufficiently apprise the public of what occurs at a Board meeting.