Bender: Invoking FOIA to Increase Pay is Creative Interpretation
COLUMBIA – Richland Two school board members say they aren’t enriching themselves at taxapayer expense by meeting more often.
Until recently, district policy set trustee pay at $395 per person, per meeting, according to Chair Joe Trapp. The policy also caps the total number of meetings at 30, which is also a requirement of state law.
Board members, though, are getting paid more money – $395 for additional meetings – without any apparent vote to increase their compensation.
Trustee Lindsay Agostini said she only recently discovered her pay increased, so she raised the issue at the July 9 meeting.
“I’m trying to understand how it is that in years past, board members only got paid for board meetings,” Agostini said. “How did it come about and why was it never brought to the board, about these payments and increases?”
Agostini’s inquiries elicited a lone chuckle and conflicting responses from board members, mostly from the trustees who are now receiving extra pay for serving on multiple committees.
“I’m not sure how it came about either except for saying that board members would get paid for meetings,” said board trustee Angela Nash. “That’s what we were told and that’s what we’ve gone with. It’s not by any means an increase.”
The board members who attend agenda meetings and committee meetings now earn an additional $395 per meeting, in addition to the $395 they receive for regular board meetings.
Trustee Lashonda McFadden also defended expanding board member pay to agenda and committee meetings, saying the practice helps combat “walkouts” and other forms of absenteeism.
“The policy was changed to prevent board members from getting paid for meetings they did not attend,” McFadden said. “It’s not like we’re getting any extra money. If you’re here doing the work, then you should get paid for it, whether you’re on a committee or not.”
According to Agostini, it has not been determined who initiated the additional $395 payments Agostini responded by reciting a board policy that states “per diem and mileage will not be paid for more than 30 board meetings in any one calendar year.”
The FOIA does not determine whether or not a payment to a public official is legitimate.
Jay Bender
Media Attorney, SC Press Association
“A board meeting is not a committee meeting. A board meeting is a meeting of the entire board where there is a quorum present,” Agostini said. “It is not an agenda setting meeting for three members of the board and it is not for committee meetings. It is for board meetings.”
Trustee Joe Trapp invoked the S.C. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in defending Trustees getting paid for subcommittees.
“A board meeting is any time the public is allowed to attend the meeting because of the [FOIA],” Trapp said. “If that’s the case, any meeting that we notice, that could be considered or should be called a board meeting.”
While FOIA specifically classifies committee and subcommittee meetings as being open to the public, the statute’s purpose is to guarantee public access, not to calculate board member pay.
Conflating school board pay with FOIA misses the point of the statute, said Jay Bender, an attorney with the S.C. Press Association, of which The Voice is a member.
“The FOIA does not determine whether or not a payment to a public official is legitimate,” he said. “The law does require meetings be held in public, a requirement often disregarded by that particular school board.”
Invoking FOIA to justify higher school board trustee member pay is “a very creative interpretation of state law and accounting practices,” Bender said.
It wasn’t that long ago that board member pay abuses resulted in major changes in state law.
In 2019, largely in response to the Tri-County Electric scandal, where board members showered themselves with generous pay and perks, the state imposed heightened oversight measures for the state’s 20 co-op boards.
The Tri-County board also held large numbers of meetings. In 2017, the board convened 50 meetings, with each trustee collecting $450 per meeting, according to media reports.
Richland Two trustees took no action at the July 9 meeting, though some members signaled a desire to revise board policies to specify the meetings for which trustees should receive pay.