Mahomet-Seymour boards votes to see lawyer communication

BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com

The Mahomet-Seymour School board voted 5-2 Tuesday night to instruct the Mahomet-Seymour legal counsel to provide the board with communication between legal counsel and district staff for the last three years to the board for review.

Mahomet-Seymour Board President Max McComb and Lori Larson voted against the motion.

The conversation about legal fees is one that has been ongoing for six months.

McComb asked why the board wants that information.

Board member Meghan Hennesy, who made the motion, said that she has brought the topic up a couple of times, both in board meetings and in communication with Superintendent Lindsey Hall, but “it has been made clear to me that this is something that the whole board has to vote on, so that’s what I’m here to ask for tonight.”

Hennesy continued to say that she has requested the information several times because the board-approved legal counsel represents the board and because over the last 2.5 to 3 years, Mahomet-Seymour legal fees have increased by 763-percent. Since 2015, the increase has been 1,785.26-percent.

“I feel like in order to do my due diligence as a board member, I’d like to be able to review those communications and start to understand what the legal needs are for the district so that we can make appropriate adjustments,” Hennesy added.

Board member Lori Larson asked if Hennesy’s request was made solely on money.

“When you are talking about legal cases, you’re talking about students and families and confidentiality,” Larson said.

She added that over the last three years Hennesy was not on the board of education.

“I don’t understand why things you didn’t make decisions on, you need to reflect upon,” Larson said. “I don’t think that shows the development of the current board functioning that we have now. I feel pretty strongly about that.”

Larson said that it’s so much more than the money, and looking at why these instances (lawsuits) are coming up and what is the result.

Hennesy said that she agreed with Larson 100-percent, and that is why she would like to see those trends.

According to Hennesy, board members who attended the IASB conference heard a member of Franczek Law Firm, a firm Mahomet-Seymour uses, say that board members should be in on communications with the attorneys, whether they read all of the correspondence or not.

“They made it very clear at IASB that the Superintendent is not the client, that the board is responsible, and that the board is the client and there is a clear demarcation. You can give the Superintendent the authority to talk to your attorneys, but that you are responsible for that.”

Hennesy also said that when Mahomet-Seymour board attorney Jeff Funk came to a recent board meeting, she spoke to him, and he also said that the board can review that communication.

“He did indicate that the board needed to give that directive,” Hennesy said.

McComb said that board members get the invoices to see what fees have been incurred.

Hennesy said that those invoices are high-level.

“Sometimes they say, ‘general,’” she said.

Hennesy said she, alongside other board members, will be better equipped to make decisions.

“The average lawyer in the State of Illinois makes about $160,000, we’ve had a big increase, maybe it’s time to start looking at bringing on in-house counsel so we have counsel around all the time to make all of the decisions,” she said.

McComb said, “In-house counsel is an interesting idea, but my guess is we have so many specialized needs, bringing in-house counsel in would not take care of a vast majority of them.”

Hennesy’s original proposal for the communication would have directed Superintendent Lindsey Hall to gather the communication between her staff and legal counsel, but Merle Giles suggested that it may be better for legal counsel to gather that communication for the board.

“If we need more data as to what brought the attorney bills here in the first place, the attorney ought to have it,” Giles said.

Hall said that she has passed the invoices on to the board members. She added that Christine Northrup, Trent Nuxoll and she are communicating with the attorneys.

According to Hall, a lot of that time is telephone communication.

Hall suggested inviting the attorneys to a closed session so that the board members could “pick their brain.”

Larson said that she agrees.

“As a school social worker and someone who wants to protect the confidentiality of the kids, if I had a prior case, and I knew who knew about it, and then it gets opened up again to people that didn’t have anything in it, it’s a slippery slope,” Larson said.

Hennesy said that she reviewed her responsibility for confidentiality with Jeff Funk.

“I do understand as a board member, I am personally responsible for violating any confidentiality, and that I am held personally responsible for that,” she said.

“It’s no different than understanding information that is brought to us today. I understand the confidentiality requirement, and I would approach this with the same care and tact that I take with all of the information that is brought to us as a board.”

Ken Keefe said that he agrees that the board attorneys should provide the information.

Because communication often happens via telephone, Keefe said that the district may not have records, but the board attorneys need to have that background information.

Board member Jeremy Henrichs asked how much money the district is spending.

Chief School Business Official Trent Nuxoll said it varies.  

Hennesy had done the math from line item “legal services” in board packets. In 2015, the district spent $19,122; in 2016, $26,202; in 2017, $41,767; in 2018, $153,606 and currently the board is budgeted for $360,502 for 2019.

Hall said that the increase in budget comes from ongoing litigation.

Giles said that he would like to get the information from the attorneys without having to pay for it.

Hennesy said that’s why her first instinct was to have the district do its own search so additional fees were not incurred.

Mahomet resident Gloria Cherry asked if Hennesy was looking to see a summary, and Hennesy said that she would like to see the communication.

McComb believed that the ongoing bills were being paid by insurance.

Hennesy said that she ran the math for that, too.

“I’ve been told that when we are in ongoing litigation, we cap out at $5,000. So, unless we are in 72 lawsuits, I still have a gap and I don’t understand what is going on there.”

Nuxoll said that those bills are sent directly to insurance after the district’s deductible has been paid. He told the board that he would go back and look if insurance reimbursed the district for any of the “legal services” fees.

Henrichs asked if Hennesy was trying to figure out which communications were unnecessary.

“No, I’m just trying to understand as the client, we keep paying lots of bills, and I’d like to see the communication back and forth with the attorney and understand what the trends are because there might be a different way to solve this,” Hennesy said.

Hennesy said that she as an individual cannot make any decisions.

“I would like to have a discussion as the board,” she said, “I can’t decide one thing versus another.”

Henrichs asked if Hennesy had had a personal conversation with Hall to see if that would satisfy.

“I asked to see all the communication,” she said. “We came in and talked about legal bills and I’ve requested invoices.

“I haven’t been in to talk to her because she told me that if I wanted to see that I needed to come to the board and the board had to direct her as a whole.”

Henrichs said that he does not feel that it is an unreasonable request, he wondered how a board member might make a decision without first-hand knowledge on a subject.

“I’m not going to make any decisions,” Hennesy said.

“I’m signing off on very large bills and the client is the board,” she said. “I’m trying to understand what the communication flow is; the client seeing their eyes on that is important.”

Henrichs and Giles said that they would like to know what it would cost the district to do this.

Hennesy reiterated that she started with asking for the district to do a search, that may not include phone calls, but it would eliminate the possibility of any additional charges being incurred.

Hall again stated that she would suggest that the board invite the attorneys to a closed session.

Larson said that the numbers Hennesy presented include some legal service increases because of some very public happenings coming out of the Mahomet-Seymour School District.

“It feels like when I ask for a piece of information, I constantly have to justify why I want that piece of information,” she said. “I don’t feel like my reasons are invalid, but I feel like I am being talked out of them or people are trying to renavigate what it is that I am asking for.

“I am trying to be clear that, as a board member, and as the person responsible and the client, that the board look at this. I’d like to do that in my role as a board member. I think we all should be doing that, if I’m honest. So I’m asking that information be sent to the board.”

Cherry asked, “is this how you guys run your households? When people send you bills and you just blanket pay them? And don’t really know what you’re paying for? That seems like common sense to me, to know what you’re paying for.”