HOWLAND – State Education Commissioner Susan A. Gendron wants SAD 31 board member Bruce Hallett to immediately return to the district more than $14,000 he earned as a liaison on a $3.9 million renovation of two district schools.

In a letter released Thursday, Gendron told Hallett that she was aware of his work reporting renovation progress to Superintendent Jerry White and also of his serving as a spare bus driver. Gendron said it wasn’t clear whether SAD 31 paid Hallett for his driving, but quoted state law prohibiting a school board member from being hired or even volunteering for services to the school system the board oversees.

“Please take all necessary action now to comply with these provisions of the law and to return to SAD 31 any compensation you have received for your work as a superintendent’s assistant,” Gendron wrote in the Nov. 6 letter, a copy of which she sent to the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

Hallett said Thursday that according to board policy, he could not speak to the press without permission from SAD 31 board Chairman John M. Neel.

Neel reacted to news of Gendron’s letter with dismay. He said school board attorney Bruce W. Smith advised the board in a letter received Tuesday that Hallett’s hiring violated state law. White sought the attorney’s advice in response to a board member’s recent complaint.

Hallett will stop his renovation work today, Neel said.

“We made a mistake, and it’s time to own up to it,” Neel said Thursday. He called the situation “a gray area that turned into a black hole.”

In a letter accompanying Smith’s, White told board members his decision to have Hallett work on the renovation was based on his interpretation of a 1999 state law that was superseded by another law enacted in 2002, according to Neel.

“It’s a sad situation,” Neel said. “Maybe he [White] should have gone back and checked [on the state law]. I don’t know.”

White is handling a family emergency and is not expected back at work for a week, school officials said Thursday.

According to school records, Hallett earned $14,242.50 from June 29 to Oct. 11 for 4743/4 hours as a liaison to Bowman Bros. Inc., the general contractor overseeing renovation of Penobscot Valley High School and the interconnected Hichborn Middle School. The work is almost finished.

White said last week that Hallett’s efforts saved SAD 31 as much as $100,000, allowing the project to regain several features cut during its design because of a lack of funds.

Yet Maine statute states that a “member of a school board or spouse of a member of a school board may not be an employee in a public school within the jurisdiction of the school board to which the member is elected.”

According to the statute, an employee is defined as “a person who receives monetary payment or benefits, no matter the amount paid or hours worked, for personal services performed for a school administrative unit.”

The law maintains the sovereignty of school board members by prohibiting them from volunteering for school-related activities or reporting “directly to the superintendent, principal, athletic director or other school administrator within the jurisdiction” of the board, Gendron wrote.

SAD 31 Vice Chairwoman Noreen Shorey of Burlington said she was pleased with Gendron’s letter. She was among the board members calling last week for Hallett’s resignation and a return of the money he was paid.

“I have nothing against Bruce Hallett, but I just had a problem because the law and the policy we have says very well that you cannot do this,” Shorey said. “If one person can break the law and do these things, then how can we tell the next person what they are doing is wrong?

“That is my only point. It has nothing to do with him as a person,” she added.

Gendron could not be reached for comment Thursday because she is out on medical leave until the end of November.

No one else at the Maine Department of Education on Thursday recalled any serving school board members getting paid for services to a school system they served, said David Connerty-Marin, spokesman for Maine DOE.

“We are asked about the provisions of this law often – probably at least once per month, but usually by someone who is considering a run for public office, usually a school board,” he said in an e-mail. “In most cases, the person running has a spouse who is employed by the school district. We refer them to the law.”

But SAD 31’s case is such an unusual situation that state officials aren’t quite sure what to do next.

“Of course, it could have happened [before] and been handled locally, and it is also possible that the department was involved and the people I’ve asked were not aware of it,” Connerty-Marin said. “As such, we have no past history on which to base possible actions.”

Last year, Bangor’s Dan Tremble resigned just days after being elected to the school committee because the law prohibited his serving while his wife was employed by the school department.

Brewer school board member Frank Breau, whose wife was a teacher in Brewer schools, resigned under similar circumstances in 2006.

Hallett was hired because the construction work needed a day-to-day liaison between White and contractors, and no clerk of the works was budgeted, White has said. SAD 31 serves Burlington, Edinburg, Enfield, Howland, Maxfield and Passadumkeag. Hallet is one of four board members from Howland.

Smith and Gendron’s letters seem to overrule White’s claim that Hallett’s hiring was justified because other contractors failed to respond to a single advertisement placed in the Lincoln News weekly newspaper. White argued that a school board member may be hired by a board if the work sought is advertised and the board member is the only qualified applicant.

Shorey and Beth Turner, a Burlington selectwoman and former SAD 31 board chairwoman, said that in a 2004 meeting with the board, Smith had explained carefully the circumstances under which board members legally could work on a school’s behalf.

Minutes of a June 16, 2004, meeting show the board appointing Hallett to observe and report only to the board, not to the superintendent, voluntarily regarding the ongoing renovation of a gymnasium, cafeteria and locker room between Hichborn and PVHS, in compliance with state law.

State education officials are awaiting Hallett’s response to Gendron’s letter before determining what to do next, Connerty-Marin said, and the Attorney General’s Office awaits direction from Gendron and her staff, said David Loughran, office spokesman.

Connerty-Marin declined to say what would happen if Hallett could not, or would not, return the money he earned.

“It would be entirely hypothetical to conjecture about specific actions, especially given that we are not aware of any similar case in recent years, and any future action would be based on the circumstances of the situation,” Connerty-Marin said. “We have no reason to believe at present that any further action will be necessary.”

The prospect of Hallett having to come up with so much money saddened Neel.

“Can he undo the work he did? No, but that’s something we’re going to have to deal with,” he said.