Why Filling Framingham School Committee Vacancies Needs Charter Change

This is the 3rd article in the Charter Change Series.

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In each of its last two terms the Framingham School Committee has had to fill member vacancies. In its prior term that occurred for District 2, when Karen Foran Dempsey sadly passed away, and in the current term for District 2 again, when Ricky Finlay took a city job, and for District 1, when Beverly Hugo moved to Wellesley. The charter provides a procedure for filling member vacancies, but it has problems which invite some simple adjustments.

The current procedure is:

“Upon notice of a vacancy on the school committee, board of library trustees, and board of cemetery trustees, the city clerk shall immediately post the vacancy on the municipal bulletin board. The notice shall include directions for submitting an application, and the date when applications are due. The notice shall be posted for a minimum of twenty-one (21) days, but no longer than thirty (30) days. After the period for submission of applications has expired, the city clerk shall provide the applications received to the board or committee where the vacancy exists and the council for review. A joint meeting of the council and the board or committee where the vacancy exists shall be held within forty-five (45) days following the receipt of applications from the clerk. The council may schedule such joint meeting during a regularly scheduled council meeting or call a special meeting for this purpose. Upon the election of a resident by a majority of the combined membership of the council and board or committee to fill the vacancy, such person shall be sworn to office, and shall complete the remainder of the term of the vacant seat.”

There are multiple issues with this.

The first is the interfering role of the City Council.

Following state law, the School Committee has a scope of authority quite distinct from the City Council, and that state law makes it clear that the School Committee has full authority over the school district, with City Council authority only applying to an up or down vote on school district budgets. Wisely, the state does not allow the City Council line-item veto power over the school district operating budget, so the City Council cannot micromanage operation of the school district by tweaking its budget in any manner.

That separation of powers for the School Committee and City Council advises strongly against allowing the City Council any role in selecting School Committee members when vacancies occur. In principle, with the City Council having 11 members and the School Committee 8 members, when a vacancy occurs, the City Council could override any choice the School Committee might have made after its review of candidates.

In the most recent District 1 and District 2 vacancy cases that did not occur, and the decision was unanimous, but in the first District 2 vacancy case, there was significant contention. I was a member of the School Committee during that time, and we had the good fortune to have 4 capable candidates: Brandon Ward, David Gordon, Kelly Garofalo and Ricky Finlay. These candidates were thoroughly interviewed by the School Committee, which was split 4-4 between Finlay and Gordon. The City Council heavily favored Rick Finlay with 7 votes, and just 3 for Gordon, 1 for Garofalo and 0 for Ward. So, Ricky Finlay was appointed with an 11-8 vote margin in the joint School Committee/City Council meeting.

If the matter had been decided by the School Committee alone, the split voted would have activated a deciding vote by Mayor Spicer and David Gordon would have been elected.

Further, the selection of Ricky Finlay seemed to overlook the fact that he had departed serving on the School Committee twice: once for job related reasons, and once by choice to run for City Council. To me he seemed to have much less interest than one would want in a candidate, and the other 3 candidates were more attractive as they had much more significant educational and governmental experience. Any of the other 3 would have increased the talent pool and the diversity needed for a highly functional School Committee.

The City Council, however, simply knew Ricky Finlay better than the other candidates and had much less know-how on what would make the School Committee work optimally. They decided on a member that they would never have to work with. That makes no sense.

After all that, Ricky Finlay took a job with the city and David Gordon finally got to serve when the entire selection process was run again.

One important further observation is that, although in the joint School Committee/City Council meeting where Rick Finlay prevailed the School Committee was split 4-4, in the days prior to that the School Committee looked to be favoring David Gordon 5-3. The City Council meanwhile seemed to be sure to favor Ricky Finlay and override the School Committee choice. At the last minute, one School Committee member changed their vote from Gordon to Finlay to avoid the blatant embarrassment of the School Committee clearly favoring Gordon but being overridden by the Finlay backers in the City Council. That ‘political smoothing’ caused a fracture of some relationships in the School Committee. That was another clear downside to having the City Council wading into School Committee affairs.

The upshot of all of this is that it would be an improvement if the City Charter was changed to eliminate the role of the City Council in ever choosing School Committee members. The School Committee plays no role in filling City Council vacancies and should not be regarded as some junior body which needs assistance from the City Council to choose its members. That would respect the separation of powers which the state intended when setting up the laws governing these two bodies.

The second major problem with the current process is that it entirely eliminates voters from the picture. It seems a much better approach to have a special election for any vacancy occurring in the first 18 months of the School Committee term, and a School Committee appointment process for the remainder of the term. That is the approach taken in a number of other communities and works well.

Elected School Committee members align better with the fundamentals of democracy than appointed ones.

These are simple suggestions and I hope the Charter Review Committee considers them.