CMS/Meck talk on sales tax sparks war of words

A meeting scheduled today between leaders of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and Mecklenburg County sparked allegations by Commissioner Bill James that it's a  "secret meeting"  to plot strategy for a November referendum on a sales tax hike.

School board Vice Chair Tim Morgan and Commissioners' Chair Trevor Fuller say it's simply a session for county officials to brief their CMS counterparts on the plan for a quarter-cent increase that would go toward teacher raises.

Morgan

Morgan,  a Republican,  says he and CMS board Chair Mary McCray requested the meeting after commissioners approved the sales tax referendum in May.  He said they had been reading about the plan in the newspaper but hadn't gotten a first-hand report.  If approved,  the hike is expected to raise up to $35 million a year,  with 80 percent for CMS salaries and the rest divided among CPCC,  the Arts & Science Council and libraries.

A meeting was set to include Morgan,  McCray,  Fuller,  commissioners' Vice Chair Dumont Clarke,  County Manager Dena Diorio and Superintendent Heath Morrison.

Morgan said commissioner Matthew Ridenhour,  also a Republican,  texted him to ask if such a meeting was happening.  "I said 'absolutely,' "  Morgan said Tuesday.  "It's not a secret to our folks."

Ridenhour

Ridenhour said he contacted the board services office and was told it was a leadership meeting which he couldn't attend. He then emailed Fuller and other commissioners,  saying he understood that it was a meeting to craft a memo that commissioners would eventually vote on.

"Given the subject matter of the meeting,  the allocation of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars,  I had hoped to sit in on this meeting so I could be fully aware of what was being discussed. ...  I was quite surprised to learn that I am not allowed to attend the meeting, nor are any other Commissioners allowed to attend,"  he wrote.  Ridenhour asked that the county clerk take minutes for the full board to review.

James,  a Republican,  took the matter further in an email copied to news media:  "This meeting sounds like a secret planning meeting to figure out how to present the sales tax proposal to the media/public without them knowing about the details in advance.  If the Democrats want to do that they should just go somewhere else other than the government center to hatch their plans. They certainly shouldn’t involve the County Manager and sup(erintendent)."

James

"I would point out that government resources of ANY kind can’t be used to promote or support a ballot initiative,"  James added.  "Ultimately, what is the reason for meeting with CMS and the various managers but to coordinate ballot support in violation of state law."  He said Morrison and Diorio count as such resources and their participation is  "ill-advised and I believe illegal."

Fuller,  a Democrat,  responded that Ridenhour's message was riddled with inaccuracies.  There is no plan to draft a memo,  he said.

Fuller

"The unremarkable fact is that the chair of the school board asked (and I agreed) for us to meet so as to better understand the meaning and intent of the County Commission's policy concerning the sales tax referendum. Since you oppose this policy, I don't understand what legitimate reason you have to insist on being part of the meeting,"  Fuller said.  "In any case, since this is not an official meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, it is inappropriate for a single commissioner to request that the Clerk of the Board serve as a personal stenographer."

A note:  It's neither uncommon nor illegal for small groups of elected officials to meet to discuss business.  However,  if a meeting involves a quorum of the board,  it becomes subject to the N.C. Open Meetings Law,  which requires public notice and an opportunity for the public to attend.

Dunlap

George Dunlap,  a Democrat who was a school board member before he became a county commissioner,  emailed that some of his colleagues seem to have suddenly  "gotten religion"  in taking umbrage at such meetings.

"The meeting is not a secret if you know about it,"  Dunlap said in a reply to James.  "Every one of us has meetings or has had a meeting with folk the (sic) we want at the table,  and we didn't open it up to anyone else."

Morgan said his goal is to get information to report back to the full school board.  "This is the proper role of leadership of the boards to have this conversation,"  he said.

Fair share from CMS?

Mecklenburg County Commissioner Matthew Ridenhour last week asked Superintendent Heath Morrison for a breakdown of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools spending by voting district. Such a breakdown,  he said,  might help address concerns that lead some people to talk about splitting the countywide district into smaller ones.

Ridenhour

Ridenhour, a Republican elected last year,  is jumping into a longstanding debate over the fairness of how and where CMS spends its money.  The gist:  Schools in low-income neighborhoods get extra money to help overcome student disadvantages.  They tend to have higher per-pupil spending than suburban schools,  partly because of that extra aid and partly because suburban schools are generally larger,  spreading basic operating costs among more kids.  But residents of more affluent zones tend to pay more in property taxes,  leading to rumblings about unfairness.

Morrison,  who started the CMS job in July,  said he'll try to answer Ridenhour's question.  I'll be curious to see what he comes up with.

His predecessor,  Peter Gorman,  calculated per-pupil spending at each school as part of a CMS equity report.  The county has used those numbers to create a per-pupil average for each district.

But Morrison's crew didn't do an equity report and hasn't released updated per-pupil spending numbers.

Dunlap

And as County Commissioner George Dunlap,  a Democrat and former school board member,  noted,  school locations don't correspond to services that residents of a voting district receive.  Many students live in one district and attend school in another,  especially if they're in magnet or alternative schools.

"This is one community,"  Dunlap said.  "I don't think we ought to be trying to split it up by district."

One of the drawbacks of covering education for more than a decade is that some of the back-and-forth starts to feel like watching an old married couple argue.  County Commissioner Bill James, an accountant and a Republican, has been arguing for years that CMS gets too much money and doesn't provide enough results.  This time around,  he didn't seem to find the energy for critiquing the numbers.

James

"I just don't really feel that educational achievement is getting better,"  James said after watching a presentation on CMS academic gains.  "Maybe it's a lack of PR on the part of CMS."

"Feelings are not facts,"  responded Dunlap.  "Just because you feel a certain way doesn't make it true."

Dunlap urged his colleagues to look at the data and see how much progress CMS has made toward narrowing the performance gaps between black, Hispanic and white students and between poor and middle-class students.

At the risk of being a party-pooper  --  and the even bigger risk of getting in the middle of a political spitting match  --  I'd note that those numbers aren't as meaningful as they look.  That's because the CMS charts compare results from 2008,  when students took state exams only once,  with those from 2012,  when students who failed the first time retook the test.  The state launched that requirement in 2009,  and the result was an immediate jump in pass rates.  Groups that had more students falling just below the grade-level cutoff  (such as black, Hispanic and low-income students)  saw big gains,  while the change was smaller for groups where most students passed on the first try  (white, Asian and middle-class students).

At the time, Gorman blasted the retesting as artificial inflation of results.  For the first couple of years he offered comparisons of pass rates before and after the retest bump.

That's probably not practical now.  But if CMS wants to make a fair comparison,  all it has to do is use 2009,  rather than 2008,  as the baseline.  If the gaps have still narrowed,  it says something about student achievement,  not just changing rules.