SAD 31 panel member defends hiring

HOWLAND – “It’s not about me. It’s about the school, the kids and their education,” SAD 31 school board member Bruce Hallett said Wednesday night.

During the school board meeting Hallet spoke publicly for the first time since state Education Commissioner Susan A. Gendron told him in a Nov. 7 letter to return to SAD 31 about $14,242 he earned on the renovation of two district schools.

Hallett spoke almost entirely in praise of Superintendent Jerry White and the extra features and improvements White’s efforts added to the schools.

“The people and the taxpayers need to know what Jerry White saved [them],” Hallett said. He called that “the other side of the story” and blamed Bangor Daily News articles concerning the illegality of his work for the district on people who all along opposed renovating Penobscot Valley High School and the interconnected Hichborn Middle School. He did not identify them.

Hallett’s praise of the superintendent echoed statements White made Nov. 2 when he said Hallett’s hiring saved the district as much as $100,000. The improvements that Hallett attributed Wednesday to White included asbestos abatement, full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, new bleachers, siding, insulation, lighting, sprinkler and alarm systems, 50 to 55 new heavily insulated windows, and a peaked roof that replaced a flat, leaky roof.

He said White’s efforts also helped replace 10 37-year-old valves in school showers and found summer work for students, adding that the work done was worth far more than the $3.9 million budgeted.

Hallett predicted that the new more efficient boilers and electrical systems would create $150,000 in savings annually and noted with irony that an estimate Gendron provided in 2001 and 2002 on a re-roofing project was $8.85 million.

What Hallett didn’t say was whether he would, or could, return the money to the school system or how his hiring occurred.

According to school records, Hallett earned $14,242.50 from June 29 to Oct. 11 for working about 475 hours as a liaison to Bowman Bros. Inc., the general contractor overseeing the renovation. The work is almost finished.

Actually, Hallett said Wednesday, his own work on the project totaled 1,020 hours and about 51/2 years. But he did not say whether that work was paid or volunteer.

In her letter, Gendron wrote that Hallett’s work on the project violated state law preventing school board members from being employed by school systems that they oversee. School board attorney Bruce W. Smith also wrote that Hallett’s hiring was illegal and board Chairman John M. Neel admitted it had been a mistake.

According to Maine General Statute 20-A MRSA 1002, 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.”

State Department of Education officials reached Wednesday said they had not heard from Hallett or SAD 31 regarding whether the money would be repaid. Earlier, they had expressed confidence that the school board would handle it properly and said they could not ever recall a circumstance in which a school board member was paid by a school system.

Neel declined to comment on what steps the board would take in response to Gendron’s letter.