School board to consider new legal services policy after wage claim appeal

LACONIA — The Laconia School Board will weigh a change to its policy about engaging legal services a little more than a month after an April 10 hearing of a district appeal in Superior Court.

In January, the school district appealed a wage claim ruling of the Department of Labor in favor of a former administrator. The decision to appeal was made without a vote of the school board. Some members feel they should have been consulted, and the board as a result will consider adding a new school attorney policy in May. If adopted, it would require the superintendent to get board approval for “unusual types or amounts of professional legal service.”

The board first discussed the appeal publicly at its Feb. 10 meeting. Board Member Laura Dunn, who chairs the budget and personnel committee, expressed concern about the appeal’s content and the fact that the board had not seen or greenlit it until after filing. 

“If you look at the dates in here, the board didn’t approve the appeal to superior court,” Dunn said, referring to a copy of the filing. “I don’t know ... if the chair had reviewed this before it was submitted to Superior Court, signed off on it or anything, but there is some inaccurate information in here.” 

In a follow-up interview, Dunn declined to specify what she felt was inaccurate, but at the meeting said the appeal “really hones in on ‘it’s the board that did this,’ or ‘it’s the board that made this decision,’ and I feel like it warrants further discussion.”

Board Member Dawn Johnson then asked Board Chair Jennifer Anderson and  Superintendent Steve Tucker to clarify who authorized the appeal and whether the chair had approved it. 

“That was not something that falls under my approval,” Anderson responded. “I didn’t sign off on anything.”

“As is the case with many instances when we work with legal, we were advised by legal and we acted in accordance with what counsel advised us,” Tucker said to Johnson. “When we work with attorneys, we go with their guidance.”

In the days before the meeting, Dunn had asked New Hampshire School Board Association attorney Will Phillips about whether the superintendent was able to file an appeal without board approval. The NHSBA is a professional nonprofit organization and lobbying group that, among other services, provides districts with guidance and sample language on policies. 

Phillips told Dunn via email that “while a Board would have ultimate authority over most litigation decisions, in the absence of policy or specific decisions, the Superintendent would appear to have at least implied authority” because of both state law — which gives the superintendent “Oversight of ... appropriate hearings, litigation, and court issues” — and board policy. Laconia does not currently have a policy about school attorneys or litigation, and so its policy BFE, about administration in policy absence, governed the situation, Phillips told Dunn. It states in part that “in the absence of established Board policy or Board direction, the Superintendent shall assume responsibility for whatever decision or action is taken.”

Phillips also noted that the NHSBA has an optional policy about school attorneys — each of the policies it shares with member districts is categorized as either required, recommended or optional. That policy, BDG, gives superintendents authority over “routine” legal assistance but states that “when the administration concludes that unusual types or amounts of professional legal service may be required, Board authorization for such service shall be promptly requested.”

While that language, Phillips said, “does not specifically address decisions to appeal, it does suggest by implication that litigation decisions requiring attorney time would be outside the ‘routine’ matters requiring legal assistance.” 

A few days after the Feb. 10 meeting, Johnson, who sits on the policy committee, made a request to its chair, board member Heather Drolet, that, in light of recent events the committee both review BFE and consider adopting BDG. 

The policy committee recommended no changes to BFE at its April 4 meeting, but opted to refer BDG to full-board review. 

When reviewing a policy, Drolet said, the committee can draft and recommend changes for board approval, or instead can send the policy before the full body. 

“Board member Johnson really wants to have this discussion,” Drolet told The Daily Sun. But because the committee disagreed about whether BDG was a necessary policy, she continued, they decided that “the most authentic way” to have the discussion would be with the entire board. 

“This is a policy that is needed,” Johnson said in an interview. She declined to expand her position further until after the board’s discussion.

That review is scheduled for the board’s May 16 meeting. 

“The practices named in the policy are already happening,” Drolet said when asked about her position on the attorney policy, adding that this depends on one’s interpretation of its language — notably on what qualified as “unusual types or amounts of professional legal service.”

Drolet also described existing ways for the board to address a policy concern that informed her position.

“Partly what we struggle with is — we have policies, and if or when they are not followed, sometimes people want to change the policy,” Drolet said. If a policy is violated, it may not be because there is an inherent problem with a policy, but rather there may be a compliance issue best addressed by the board “directly with the individual through their evaluation process.” 

“Not that that’s happened here,” Drolet added, emphasizing that she spoke generally about how board policy works.

Anderson echoed Drolet’s position that a legal services policy would be “redundant” to existing board practice and policy deferring to the superintendent, but also said that she looks forward to the board’s conversation about it. 

“Superintendent Tucker does a good job of keeping the board informed,” Anderson said. “There has never been an occasion where I have felt surprised by anything.” Anderson confirmed that this included the district’s January decision to appeal. 

When the board voted to terminate the contract of former administrator Christine Blouin in April 2022, according to Anderson, that vote implied approval of legal action to support the termination. The appeal “was part of a process the board had already previously approved,” Anderson said.

Dunn told The Daily Sun Wednesday that she feels the policy "would be an added layer of protection for us, given our current situation."

In an interview after raising her concerns at the February meeting, Dunn said “The board didn’t know about the DOL hearings or the decision to appeal ... It should’ve been brought to our attention" in January. She added that the size of the district’s legal bills — more than $215,000 since September 2021, and more than $50,000 since the beginning of this fiscal year in August — should “raise huge red flags for citizens.”

“I feel that some board members think that I personally have something against Superintendent Tucker. I don’t,” Dunn emphasized. “It’s not the who — I want to make that clear — it’s the action. ... I’m upset that the board was never afforded its right and obligation to make this decision."