Officials give conflict policy tentative green light

BANGOR – A policy that aims to prevent conflicts of interest on the part of school committee members sailed through the first part of the school committee’s two-step approval process Wednesday night.

After suggesting a few tweaks, committee members unanimously voted to approve the policy, crafted by Superintendent Robert Ervin.

The second reading, and likely adoption, will take place at the committee’s next meeting, set for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 10.

“I think that the need for a [conflict-of-interest policy] has been very apparent,” Ervin told school committee members during their meeting at City Hall.

To that end, Ervin said he perused conflict policies used by other schools, as well as municipal and county boards and committees.

He also tapped the Maine School Management Association for a model policy and drew from the city charter, “which does, in fact, govern your behavior,” he said.

The proposed policy on conflicts is one of two being contemplated by school officials in the aftermath of last month’s election flap, which resulted in the resignation of a member-elect.

The other policy, which will be presented for first reading during the Jan. 10 meeting, will deal with nepotism, another issue the committee has heard complaints about in recent weeks.

School officials decided to develop policies on conflict of interest and nepotism shortly after the resignation last month of Dan Tremble.

Tremble, a former city councilor who also served a term as mayor, stepped down from his school committee post Nov. 16, one day after Ervin informed him that, under state law, he could not serve on the seven-member panel while his wife, Molly Tremble, was employed by the school department.

Molly Tremble was hired in early September as an education technician at Fairmount School, where she staffs the computer room.

The only guideline school officials had to go by at that time was a state law prohibiting school committee members from serving in jurisdictions in which their spouses are employed.

Afterward, both Ervin and Tremble said they were unaware of the state law until it was too late to do anything about it.

According to the draft, the policy is not intended to prevent the school department from contracting with corporations or businesses because a committee member is an employee of the firm.

Rather, it aims to avoid putting school committee members “in a position where their interest in public schools and their interest in their places of employment … might conflict and to avoid appearances of conflict, even though such conflict may not exist.”

Among other things, the policy would bar school committee members from having a financial interest in a contract with the school department, or providing any labor, equipment or supplies. A member could not be named to any paid position created during his or her term and for a year afterward.

It would prohibit members and their spouses from serving as volunteers for programs and activities when the member or spouse has primary responsibility and reports directly to the school administrators in the school committee’s jurisdiction.

In addition, the policy also would require members involved with a business providing goods or services to the school department to declare such, and refrain from debating or voting on contracts with that business, and disclose any business and other affiliations, as required of city councilors in the city charter.

Ervin also said that the Jan. 10 meeting might be preceded by a workshop with City Solicitor Norman Heitmann about the city’s code of ethics.

“There are issues in the code that are going to affect you,” he said, citing a rule governing to what extent elected officials can involve themselves in fundraising as one example.

In unrelated action at the beginning of the meeting, Chairwoman Martha Newman called for a moment of silence in remembrance of Army Staff Sgt. James Kristofer Ciraso, 26, a 1999 Bangor High School graduate killed last week by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

A moment of silence also is planned during Friday’s boys basketball game at BHS.

In addition, the school’s Junior ROTC color guard will participate in Friday night’s ceremony in honor of Ciraso.