BOE Looks at Ways to Streamline Meetings

As Wednesday night's meeting of the Howell Board of Education came close to extending into the earliest hours of Thursday morning, the members at the dais continued what has been an extended process of looking into streamlining their efforts. 

The most recent suggestions include moving the start of executive sessions prior to meetings back a half an hour, as well as dropping down to one meeting per month. Both discussions brought some disagreement from the board and both will be up for further discussion in the near future. 

Board member Al Miller brought up the idea of moving the start of executive sessions in an effort to give the members more time to discuss the items on their agenda. "As we've seen the past few meetings that we've had, we're not getting through executive session quickly," he said. "We're being rushed on a lot of things that are going on there."

Miller pointed out that the board had met prior to Wednesday's meeting and because of their agenda they would need to meet again before the night came to an end. "I think if we just come in a half hour earlier like it used to be we might be able to get more done," he added. 

One of the driving forces in having the executive session cut from an hour to a half an hour was board president Tim O'Brien. He repeated again on Wednesday his belief that the new format could work effectively for the board. "I think that the half hour has actually forced us to cut out a lot of the stuff that we thought might have been suitable for executive but we realized we were under a time constraints so it turned out it wasn't."

Because of the changes, O'Brien said the board has been able to be more public with their discussions which he believed was for the best, but he was willing to listen to what his fellow board members wanted to do. He also proposed a compromise where the board could take the agendas on a meeting by meeting basis to decide how much they would need to discuss the items before them. 

With the board scheduled to hold a retreat next week, it was agreed that this would be one of the items up for discussion on their agenda. 

The question of moving to one meeting a month also brought up questions from members of the board and the administration. It was agreed that it was something that needed to be looked into forward especially when it comes to the budget season or any other emergency situations. The board also asked that a sample calendar be created to demonstrate how the changes would work in the months ahead. 

The next board meeting is not scheduled to be held until Nov. 9.