2013 SENATE EDUCATION SB 2216 2013 SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE MINUTES Senate Education Committee Missouri River Room, State Capitol SB 2216 1-28-13 17776 D Conference Committee Explanation or reason for introduction of bi Relating to causes of vacancy for school board positions Minutes: Chairman Flakoll: Opened hearing on SB 2216 Senator Schaible: I am Don Schaible, District 31. I am here to introduce SB 2216 at the request of the School Board Association. The problem was if we had someone not performing their duties, there is no time frame as it is listed now. Please see attachment #1 for policy for ten items we are concerned with. Chairman Flakoll: Would refusal to serve be under number five, failure to discharge. Is that equivalent? Vice Chairman Schaible: Yes. Senator Heckaman: Is the handout administrative rules? Vice Chairman Schaible: It is the Century Code. Annette Benish, Leal Council for School Boards Association: 4402-01 comes from the chapter related to elected officials. We want to hold our school board officials to the same standard as elected officials. Chairman Flakoll closed the hearing on SB 2216. Vice Chairman Schaible: I move for a do pass on the bill Senator Marcellais: Second A roll call vote was taken on SB 2216 for a Do Pass. 6 yeas, 0 neas, 0 absent. Vice Chairman Schaible will carry the bill. Date: } ( _ -{ Roll Call Vote#: d� _3> 2013 SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ROLL CALL VOTES BILL/RESOLUTION NO. Senate Education Committee 0 Check here for Conference Committee Legislative Council Amendment� �5Number Action Taken \)() \\0x\ Motion Made By S C b)� Seconded By Senators Yel}' No Senator Ye� No v/ Chariman Tim Flakoll v Senator Joan Heckaman Vice Chairman Donald Schaible v Senator Richard Marcellais v Senator Larry Luick · � Senator Nicole Poolman v 0 Total (Yes) 5t?. No· Absent 0 Floor Assignment If the vote is on an amendment, briefly indicate intent: Com Standing Committee Report Module ID: s_stcomrep_15_010 January 28,2013 2:29pm Carrier: Schaible REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE SB 2216: Education Committee (Sen. Flakoll, Chairman) recommends DO PASS (6 YEAS, 0 NAYS, 0 ABSENT AND NOT VOTING). SB 2216 was placed on the Eleventh order on the calendar. (1) DESK (3) COMMITTEE Page 1 s_stcomrep_15_010 2013 HOUSE EDUCATION SB 2216 2013 HOUSE STANDING COMMITTEE MINUTES House Education Committee Pioneer Room, State Capitol SB 2216 March 19, 2013 20178,20166 D �Conference Committee Committee Clerk Signature ) Minutes: Ch. Nathe: We will open the hearing on SB 2216. Sen. Don Schaible: Sponsor, support, explained the bill. The only concern we had with the idea of school board members not fulfilling their duties and the explanation of why we would like to remove the language on lines 23 and 24 that was overstruck. We would like to replace that with the reasons that are already set in section 44-02- 01. It's already clarified in there. The problem was that a school board member that doesn't show up and perform their duties for a certain length of time wasn't listed in there as, per se. Rather than just adding that kind of language to that section, we thought that since it was listed in that section already, it was easier to make it the same all the way through. That is the change we are requesting. That's the premise of this bill, to clarify the reason that the school board member who is not performing his duties, and not showing up and performing their duties at a certain amount of time and clarifying that issue. Ch. Nathe: So there are school board members out there that are elected but not showing up to do their duties, more or less. Sen. Don Schaible: Yes. There are other options such as the recall petition and other ways to do it, to remove them from their position. The biggest problem is the amount of time that the person has been absent. When the school board president say that the board member isn't performing their duty, and a certain amount passes that you can have them removed from office. Ch. Nathe: On line 2, page 2, section 44-02-01, that more or less just sets the reasons for the dismissal or removal not the procedure. Is that correct. Sen. Don Schaible: I don't have that section in front of me. It's a listing of other things in other political office and amount of time is also listed in that section and we could have just added that section of the amount of time that it takes before the determination can be made that they aren't performing their duties and add that in there; but since it's already in there and clarified in there, I thought it was easier just to do it that way. House Education Committee SB 2216 March 19, 2013 Page 2 Rep. J. Kelsh: On the first part, page 1, line 7, it says that school districts shall notify the county superintendent. How many counties still have superintendents that are active? Sen. Don Schaible: I'm not sure, but I know there are some. There are some in our area of the state where it is still pretty prevalent. Rep. J. Kelsh: I guess my question is, what would happen if there wasn't an active county superintendent, then who do they report to. Sen. Don Schaible: I'm not sure, but that's existing law, so whatever is taking place now is, I presume that it be followed the same way. Rep. Schatz: I'm looking at 44-02-01, and I see 10 different causes. I'm not sure what the point of this bill is. Is it the point of the bill to just add 2 more causes, just to clarify? Without knowing where to go to find 44-02-01 and I don't know if the ordinary public knows that, I'm just trying to figure out what is the point of the bill. Sen. Don Schaible: As you look at #5, on 44-02, it says, "incumbents may be absent for additional period of 60 days". It's the timeframe, that was the main point of this, and there is probably one other one, because you said there was 8 listed, and 10 listed here. It was the 60 days that we were interested in. If you have a school board member that's not actually doing something wrong, except that they aren't ever showing up. Does that fall into any of the areas that we have listed, probably not? We thought we needed a timeframe which is considered to be not doing their service. This already had the 60 days in it, and that's kind of the premise that we use. Since it's already listed here, we thought it was easier to just put everything in one spot. This probably covers more than just school boards, but it would also include school boards so we put it in there. Ch. Nathe: Just catch-all language. Sen. Don Schaible: Yes. Rep. Schatz: I'm playing the devil's advocate, I'm in the National Guard and go on deployment for a while and if I'm also a school board member, does that mean that I'm no longer a school board member. Sen. Don Schaible: No, I would perceive this as the school board would see that you're not doing your job. In the case of the National Guard deployment, no one would perceive that you aren't doing your job. You would be absent because you're fulfilling some other duty. The thing is, if I'm the school board president and somebody is missing, I will try to find out why and ask them why they aren't coming to the meetings. If you have a school board member that's not performing their duties and doesn't seem like they want to, how do you remove them. Right now, without this bill, we can't do it just because they don't show up. That's what we're looking for. House Education Committee SB 2216 March 19, 2013 Page 3 Ch. Nathe: I think under Rep. Schatz' scenario, if a person is on the school board and gets called to active duty, they are protected by law. It is no different if someone worked at a business and got called to active duty, he does not lose his job for being gone for a year. I think they are protected under that. Rep. Heller: It doesn't seem like 60 days is a long time when you're talking about a school board member because how often do they meet. Do they meet monthly? How would you know if a school board member wasn't performing duties in 60 days, just because they don't meet on a weekly basis? How often do they meet? Sen. Don Schaible: I'm pretty sure that they meet at least once a month, sometimes much more than that. It's like an unexcused absence. If you're sick, or carrying for someone, or have an excuse, that's different. I'm not head hunting or looking for someone to do something wrong. If we've got someone not performing their duties, and don't seem to want to fulfill their duties, we need a way to remove them. We're just asking for a timeframe. The 60 day time limit is being used for a lot of other positions, so we thought that was a consistent timeframe.