HOWLAND – The SAD 31 board of directors wants member Bruce Hallett to get a break.

After almost 1 1/2 hours of executive session, the board voted 10-3 Wednesday to ask Education Commissioner Susan Gendron to “no longer pursue the matter” of having Hallet repay $14,000 he earned illegally as a liaison on the $3.9 million renovation of Penobscot Valley High School and the interconnected Hichborn Middle School.

There was no public discussion. Board attorney Bruce Smith, who by Friday will have written the letter to Gendron making the request, left after the executive session and well before the meeting ended.

State law specifies 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.”

Hallett has declined to comment on the issue, except during one school board meeting in November when he said he worked only to benefit the school and its students. White has said Hallett’s work saved SAD 31 as much as $100,000 in features that originally had been cut because of lack of funds, which state officials said was irrelevant.

White has said he based his decision to employ Hallett on a state law that he did not know had been superceded.

After the meeting, board Chairman John Neel described the board’s position by using an analogy of a prosecutor dealing with an obviously guilty party but opting not to prosecute because it wasn’t worth it.

“We made a mistake in the first place,” Neel said Wednesday. “We have admitted that, but I have never thought he should be asked to pay the money back. In my personal opinion, he earned that money, and more.”

Gendron has been seeking the immediate return of the money since writing a letter to Hallett dated Nov. 6. She wrote another letter several months later essentially repeating the request. At the time, her spokesman said continuing inaction eventually would prompt the involvement of the state Attorney General’s Office, which is the state government’s legal service provider.

She met with Neel and Superintendent Jerry White early last month and secured from them a promise to bring the issue to the full board.

As far as anyone can determine, Hallett is the first school board member in Maine to violate the law, which was written to prevent corruption and maintain the sovereignty of school boards. No one locally or in the state Department of Education could recall a similar instance in the last 30 years.

Clarence Bearce, a member of the Burlington Board of Selectmen, was dismayed at the board’s vote on Wednesday. The Burlington board has pushed Gendron to resolve the issue, saying it undermines the credibility of the school board.

“They really had the opportunity to put this all behind us and they have just chosen to prolong this,” Bearce said. “Burlington is not going to walk away from this. It is really up to Mrs. Gendron to hold their feet to the fire. She has put a mandate on Mr. Hallett that he return the money, and that has got to happen.

“The board didn’t tell Mr. Hallett how to spend or invest his money,” he added. “It’s not their responsibility to figure out how to pay it back. It is Mr. Hallett’s problem.”

SAD 31 serves Burlington, Edinburg, Enfield, Howland, Maxfield and Passadumkeag.

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