The New Trier High School District 203 board violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act last spring when it privately discussed topics that should have been addressed in public, according to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.
The ruling carries no penalties. It says that in a closed-door session in May, the board improperly held a “general discussion of underlying policy with regard to the compensation of certain classes of district employees and the possibility of a potential salary freeze for different classes of employees.”
Winnetka resident Daniel Fox filed a request for review in June with the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor regarding three closed sessions — April 19, May 10 and May 17.
In its response, dated Feb. 28, the Public Access Counselor’s office issued a non-binding opinion that said the District 203 board had violated the Open Meetings act during its May 17 meeting.
However, it could not determine whether or not items were improperly discussed during the previous two meetings because the statutorily required recordings were inaudible.
Fox called that a “dog ate my homework excuse. You expect people to believe that?”
New Trier spokeswoman Nicole Dizon said the district’s recording system was replaced in mid-May, before Fox filed his allegations with the Attorney General’s Office.
She also stressed that the Attorney General’s opinion was non-binding.
The matter should “now be considered closed and the allegations did not merit the issuance of a binding decision or any punitive actions,” Dizon wrote in an e-mail.
But Emily Miller, policy and government affairs coordinator for the watchdog organization Better Government Association, said it’s not accurate to downplay the letter based on its non-binding opinion.
“It is notable that the attorney general felt it notable to issue an opinion at all, because very often they don’t do that,” Miller said. “If this kind of thing kept happening, you would probably see a binding opinion come down.”
According to the Public Access Counselor’s letter to Fox and District 203, the recording of the May 17 closed session meeting confirmed that board members veered from a brief discussion into territory that is not considered privileged.
“It appears the board initiated the closed session in compliance with the requirements of the Open Meetings Act,” the letter says. “However, as the discussion of compensation (for a specific employee) progressed, the board’s conversation extended to a more general discussion of underlying policy with regard to the compensation of certain classes of district employees and the possibility of a potential salary freeze for different classes of employees. The board also held some discussion of charging the board’s finance committee with first reviewing and making recommendations with regard to compensation proposals.”
Such general discussion is not allowed in closed session, the attorney general’s letter says.
Under the exemption cited by District 203, the Open Meetings Act allows for closed session discussion of “the merits, performance, conduct or terms of employment of individual employees,” according to the letter. “It is not intended to allow public bodies to conduct private discussions of fiscal matters or broad policies that may impact the employees of the public body generally.”
Fox said the finding is a “serious violation” that puts the district’s transparency into question.
He said the discussion of a salary freeze is something the district would want to keep private.
“That’s exactly the sort of deal they would do, where they certainly wouldn’t mention those two words together in an open meeting,” Fox said. “The teachers would go berserk.”
Dizon stressed in an e-mail that the Public Access Counselor’s letter was a non-binding opinion and that “the allegations did not merit the issuance of a binding decision or any punitive actions. “
District 203 administrators will recommend two actions to the board for consideration as a result of the opinion, Dizon wrote. First, it will make the portion of the May 17 closed session dealing with salary schedules open to the public.
“In retrospect, the board should have stated in open session that it was discussing deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees, which is permissible to discuss in closed session under (the Illinois Open Meetings Act),” Dizon wrote.
Specifically, Dizon referred to the exemption in the Open Meetings Act which allows closed session discussions about “collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives, or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees.”
Secondly, the district will revise its closed session minutes for the three meetings, at the request of the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor, “to provide more description than already provided for those minutes,” Dizon wrote.
In its non-binding opinion, the Public Access Counselor wrote that the district’s closed meeting minutes “fail to satisfy the requirements of the Open Meetings Act.”
Just as for open session meetings, closed session meeting minutes are required to summarize the discussion. New Trier’s closed session minutes, the Attorney General’s Office found, “contain no summary of the discussions that occurred in those closed sessions. Instead, the meeting minutes merely state the statutory language of the exception relied upon in holding the closed session.
“It is clear from the board’s open meeting minutes that the board understands the underlying concept, but the board has failed to apply that understanding in creating and maintaining its closed session minutes,” the opinion said.
Fox, who was active in a campaign to defeat a $174 million New Trier school referendum last year, said he became suspicious that important — and public — items were being discussed in closed session, in violation of the Open Meetings Act.
“There was a sense among a number of us that discussions were going on behind closed doors related to the referendum, related to the (dollar figure) involved, because they were not going on in the board meetings. It was frustrating,” he said.
Dizon said the district is satisfied it is following the Open Meetings Act.
“The School District is appreciative of the vigilance of the public,” she wrote. “It is also pleased that the PAC has made an overall determination that the district is in compliance with the Open Meetings Act and neither a binding opinion nor any sort of sanctions were appropriate in this matter.”
