On Jan. 31, 2023, Mahomet-Seymour Board President Max McComb wrote an opinion piece for the News-Gazette in rebuttal to what board member Meghan Hennesy said at the Jan. 17, 2023, regularly scheduled board of education meeting. The following are just excerpts from those pieces. Hennesy’s speech (Jan. 17) can be found here. McComb’s opinion piece (Jan. 31) can be found here.
This project is not an attempt to look at every issue that was brought up in its entirety. This publication has reported on some of these issues before. In those cases, links are provided so that each reader can learn more about the issue. The articles that follow are an attempt to look at the claims each board member brought up. In some cases, one board member named others. In those cases, this publication looked at what happened surrounding those claims. All of the articles can be found on this page. Each article also includes documents and videos referenced.
We understand that this piece comes two months after these events took place. We have taken time to watch discussions of every topic over the last three years, to look at board agendas and minutes from the same time period, to read emails, to send FOIA requests and to undertake a major project in analyzing TIF data. This work took time, and that is why it took so long to complete.
Quotes from McComb
“What she [Hennesy] did realize was that one of the items she was attempting to shut down that evening was a time-sensitive vote on a new food-service contract, and that a delay in that vote would mean no hot breakfast or lunches after March 1, thereby leaving one-third of our children who rely on school meals without food.”
-Max McComb
Looking Back
On Dec. 19, 2022 the Mahomet-Seymour School Board heard from the district’s Chief School Business Official, Heather Smith, that Arbor Management, the company that provided food to the district, had asked for additional money due to inflationary costs.
In 2019, the board approved a five-year contract with Arbor for $780,177.10. Within the contract, Arbor could raise their rates if their costs increased by more than 6 percent. At the time the contract was approved, the district also raised rates by $.15 in all grades.
By April 2022, Arbor Management had proven to the district and the Illinois State Board of Education that their costs had increased by more than 6 percent. The district put another lunch rate increase on the consent agenda for the April board meeting, but Ken Keefe pulled it out for an individual vote.
The request to increase the cost of food, which focused on increasing the price of healthy food rather than “junk” food, like soda, was voted down with a vote of 4-3: Hennesy, Keefe, Lamb, and Schultz voting no, and Henrichs, McComb, and McMurry voting yes. Because the majority of the board voted no, the price was not passed on to the student but rather absorbed by the district.
The request for additional money from the school district was met with a different tone in Dec. 2022 as Arbor had come under scrutiny by the public for, at times, not providing enough food for students or giving students “junk” food instead of a nutritional meal. The community also learned that under Arbor’s management. students seeking food from the school dropped from 60 percent (2019) to 30 percent (2022). Smith reported that on a field trip, Arbor sent Pop-Tarts instead of sandwiches. Lamb reported that when he visited Lincoln Trail, students only had two Boscoe sticks (a breadstick filled with cheese) on their plates.
All seven board members seemed to agree that Arbor’s performance was underwhelming, but it was Hennesy who stated she believed the company was in breach of contract. Smith said the district could not just drop Arbor, but with the board’s approval, she could submit a 60-day notice with ISBE to terminate the contract. This wasn’t the first time Hennesy spoke about the district’s food with disappointment, wanting it to take some sort of action to provide adequate options for students.
While Ms. Smith was working on this contract issue, Arbor informed the district that they were going to cease services to the district effective March 5, 2023. A new contract with Quest for food service for the remainder of the 2022-23 school year was on the Jan. 17 agenda.
Going into the meeting, it had not been disclosed that the board had been reorganized into a five-member board after Keefe and Henrichs were removed from their seats in December. At that time, even though those seats were vacated, the board of education could not move forward without a quorum of four when the tax levy hearing was called to order.
Hennesy knew this walking out on Jan. 17. She stated her reasons for speaking and leaving in the 20 minutes she spoke. Not one of those reasons included hoping that children did not have food.
Believing the board was a seven-member board, and knowing the timeline for the board to approve a food service, Hennesy used Jan. 17 to highlight the injustices she saw happening within the district.
She did not resign from her seat. The reality is that the board of education canceled a meeting due to lack of agenda items on Jan. 6, had a meeting on Feb. 6 and Feb. 21, and has the authority to call a special meeting to approve contracts.
McComb, on the other hand, did know the board was a five-member board prior to calling the meeting to order on Jan. 17. Did he let all board members know? It appeared that McMurry and Lamb were aware of the decision as they were unfazed by Hennesy leaving.
Even in Hennesy and Schultz’s absence, and the declaration of a 5-member board, the motion to approve the contract with Quest passed with a 3-0 vote from McComb, Lamb, and McMurry on Jan. 17. Food service from Quest began on March 6.
Materials used in this article
