Who's the boss in Mecklenburg? Taxpayers, voters

CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG SCHOOLS

Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board's dysfunction and the firing of Superintendent Crystal Hill has led to demands for greater transparency and accountability.

Running neck and neck with the N.C. Department of Transportation for the most egregious example of government waste is the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education. 

NCDOT spent close to $70 million designing a partial plan — it’s only 10-15% complete — for adding toll lanes projected to negatively impact the environment, generally, and harm Black neighborhoods in Charlotte specifically.
The school board’s waste is not as expensive.

It is more egregious. 

When school board members voted 5-4 Tuesday to cut ties with Crystal Hill as the district’s superintendent, they basically added well over a half-million dollars more to a mounting bill that would make even fiscally liberal folks blush: A $379,000 investigation cleared Hill’s name that some board members tried to cloud. Some on the board remained determined to fire her just because they felt like it. 

It’s known as getting terminated for convenience (no reason), as opposed to ending a work relationship for cause (a contractually stipulated reason). The convenience piece comes at a price, about $340,000 in severance for Hill. That was her annual salary. The next superintendent will want at least that much. The search firm to find that savior won’t do it as an in-kind donation. So that’s more money. All of it exceeds $1 million right there.

Oh, and during the investigation, word from school board members was for Hill to not bother coming to work. They put her on paid administrative leave. Not exactly vacation for Hill, but it was summertime, and she was getting paid with North Carolinians’ tax dollars to not work on account of a petty party thrown by board members, whose guidance has both the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation and the N.C. Office of the State Auditor doing homework on the school system.

Egregious.  

District 1 board member Charlitta Hatch got mad after Hill went on the radio to tell her side of the story. Hatch framed Hill’s autonomy as insubordination. No doubt about it, school board members were Hill’s bosses. Hatch made it clear she didn’t care for the sideshow Hill created by using the media as a personal megaphone — the circus the school board created notwithstanding. 

“What you are seeing in Washington is not acceptable here in Charlotte, and so we are making a decision to say that we need bold leadership changes, a reset across the board. And that is what leadership looks like,” Hatch said. 

John McCann

At-large board member Monty Witherspoon pointed the finger at his peers. 

“Quite frankly, this board has spiraled into complete chaos. This board is dysfunctional. This board is broken,” Witherspoon said. “I hope that residents of this county hold this board accountable at every stop and turn. I hope that the press continues to ask questions.”

Hatch’s mind appears to be on the school system’s 140,000 students.  

“The children are watching. My child is watching,” Hatch said. 

Taxpayers and voters are watching, too. School board members work for them, to extend Hatch’s insubordination metaphor.

“We know that when folks get into their positions, there does need to be some sort of accountability,” North Carolina Black Alliance democracy and economy program manager Mikayla Massey said. “These are terms. We're not talking about a monarchy here. We're talking about people taking a turn and seeing what they can do for their community. If you in community are like, ‘You know what? I actually don't like that,’ there's gonna be another option in a couple more years.”

Witherspoon and fellow at-large board members Liz Monterrey Duvall and Lenora Shipp have terms expiring in 2027. Terms come due in 2029 for Hatch, Stephanie Sneed (District 4), Dee Rankin (District 3), Shamaiye Haynes (District 2), Cynthia Stone (District 5) and Anna London (District 6).

“That’s important — to just really honor the democracy, that opportunity that we have," Massey said. 

That is, the opportunity we have to fire school board members for cause. Of course, the state auditor could end up applying the heat first. That’s if the SBI doesn’t beat him to the punch. 

John McCann is senior digital communications associate for Advance Carolina. 

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