Schools
"Rule of Necessity" Allows School Committee to Bargain Health Insurance
The law will allow the members to bargain with school employee unions without a conflict of interest, despite the fact that the School Committee participates in the city's medical insurance plan.
All members of the School Committee receive health insurance through the city.
They all also sit on subcommittees that bargain with various school employee unions over issues that will probably include health insurance, according to committee Chairman Patricia Chisholm.
To avoid a conflict of interest—to allow them to participate in negotiations regarding medical insurance—Chisholm invoked the “Rule of Necessity” at the committee’s last meeting on April 12.
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Under the state’s conflict of interest statute, “Public officials are typically prohibited from participating in decisions that can affect their own personal financial interest,” according to the statement Chisholm read near the end of the meeting.
However, under certain conditions, an exception—the Rule of Necessity—can be made, according to Chisholm.
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The rule “may be invoked when all or most of the members of a governmental body have a conflict of interest in regard to a particular matter which would mean that, if all of the members who have conflict were disqualified, the governmental body would be unable to act upon that matter.”
The state Ethics Commission recognizes that the Rule of Necessity may be invoked under certain circumstances, Chisholm said.
The committee needs to invoke that rule now, Chisholm read, because, “The School Committee has commenced, or is about to commence, bargaining with all of its employee unions, and it is evident that the city's medical insurance plan is likely to be an issue in these negotiations.”
“(O)n advice of counsel,” Chisholm, as committee chairman, recommended “that the School Committee invoke the Rule of Necessity.”
She entertained a motion that the text of the page-and-a-half explanation of the rule and its application “be entered into the minutes” of the April 12 meeting, “along with recording the fact that all of the current members of the Woburn School Committee, as well as the members of the administration who sit on bargaining subcommittees, currently do participate in the City’s medical insurance plan” and should not be disqualified from participating in the negotiations because of “their own participation in the City’s plan.”
The committee passed a motion to that effect on a voice vote.
