Douglas County School District hemorrhages personnel as Gilbert fees continue to rise

In addition to the recent resignations of both the long-standing Douglas County School District Superintendent Keith Lewis, as well as the Director of Human Resources Joe Girdner, the next district leader to tender his resignation is board member Tony Magnotta.

Magnotta announced his intention to resign last week, done in protest against the board majority’s actions since January.

“I, along with a minority of other Board Trustees, have struggled to curtail and delay some of the major decisions/votes passed without thoughtful discussion,” Magnotta wrote in his resignation letter. “I have been met with harassment and veiled threats to ‘get on our side’ to project a united Board of Trustees to the public. I feel we have ‘wasted’ valuable time and resources this past year on agenda items that will adversely impact our district in the near future (i.e. changes to our legal counsel, loss of two key administrators).”

Magnotta’s resignation was accepted by the board during Tuesday’s meeting, and they voted to begin the process of appointing a new board member at the next scheduled meeting on Jan. 9, 2024.

Public comment continued to set their sights on President Susan Jansen and trustees Doug Englekirk, David Burns and Katherine Dickerson, who make up the majority of the board.

At one point during public comment, Jansen told officers to “take her out” after a commenter brought up the fact that Jansen called a member of the audience a “piece of sh*t” when she presumably thought her microphone was off during an earlier meeting, and did not allow the commenter to continue.

Public comment time and time again brought up legal counsel Joey Gilbert’s skyrocketing legal fees, which this month alone were billed at over $40,000 — bringing the four-month total to over $170,000 — as well as the board’s provisions in searching for a new superintendent. Commenters said they disagreed with the language in the document, which took all autonomy away from the prospective superintendent and would make them a “puppet” for the board.

Joey Gilbert Legal Fees continue to increase

As part of the budget augmentation, the budget for legal fees was increased from $123,050 to $450,000 for the year -- an increase of $326,950 or 266 percent. More on that here.

So far, Gilbert has charged the district over $170,000 since his July hiring, which already surpassed the original legal fees budget of $123,050.

Gilbert has repeatedly said that a large percentage of the legal fees he bills the district for are due to public records requests and open meeting law violations. However, the public records requests were under the purview of the superintendent’s office until the hiring of Gilbert, at which point the board opted to give him the duty to process them instead. Prior to this, there were no additional charges for records requests as they were a part of the superintendent’s normal duties.

During this month alone, Gilbert billed over $13,000 for responding to public records requests.

Trustee Carey Kangas said he wanted to address the high legal fees, and said as a board it is their responsibility to get the high costs “under control” for the sake of the public.

Trustee Kathleen Dickerson said the reason for the high fees are because counsel can’t work for free and they’re responding to “frivolous” lawsuits.

“This sue thing going on and these legal whatevers is, you know, happening on both sides; legal counsel isn’t going to do it for free. You need to know this is big.”

Dickerson did not clarify what she meant by “happening on both sides” or what legal documents or lawsuits she was referring to.

Kangas said that he understands counsel is responding to a variety of requests and violations, but if that’s the case, then the items should be broken down for the public to show how much of the billing is going towards fighting lawsuits and how much is going towards other legal advice.

“It’s called public transparency and it’s public money being spent.”

Trustee Linda Gilkerson said she wanted to discuss the agenda item of Gilbert’s fees, but was shut down by Jansen.

“We’re not doing that Linda, we’re not going to pull legal invoices,” Jansen said.

Gilkerson said she had no intention to discuss invoices, but rather wanted to discuss public documents. Gilkerson said that the public should be made aware of what the breakdown of fees are for, including public records requests, school board meetings, board administration costs, etc. which do not need to include specific invoices which Jansen has determined to be privileged information in previous meetings.

While feedback from other board members was generally positive about labeling the categories in the invoices for the public benefit, Kiera Sears of Gilbert’s law firm stated there are legal precedents to not including breakdowns, and that it can be discussed in private.

Gilbert said that he stands by his billing “110 percent” and that he “doesn’t have a problem with anything” but said that there are bad actors on “both sides” who will run up costs to the district through public records requests to “make the board look bad.” However, public records requests are already labeled within his invoices under their own category at this time.

“I just don’t want to invite anybody to do anything or not do anything that could cause the district more money or more problems later,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert’s fees were approved by the board.

Gilkerson kicked off Superintendent search committee due to ‘hurt feelings’ of president

The process of searching for a new superintendent began with contentious arguments between board members after Gilkerson pointed out that Jansen alone determined what should be on the job posting without allowing input or review from other board members.

“The board directed Ms. Jansen and I to work together on this and I was never contacted to do this,” Gilkerson said. “It’s very frustrating that we had voted on this seven to zero and Ms. Jansen chose to do this by (herself). Or did you work with someone else?”

“I worked with (Trustee Burns),” Jansen said.

According to Burns, because Jansen created the committee for the search, she was within her rights to include or not include anyone she wanted to.

“She can change it, she can eliminate somebody and she can add somebody,” Burns said. “You wanted to censure her and I told you, you cannot do that, and you insisted on doing it again. What do you expect the president to do, skip down the road with you? I’m telling you, she has a right to do it and she did it.”

Jansen agreed, stating she chose to remove Gilkerson from the search without notice because Gilkerson suggested censuring her. Gilkerson attempted to censure Jansen for removing an agenda item without notice that Gilkerson had asked to be included.

“That was done with the intention of embarrassing and humiliating me, and it was out of order,” Jansen read from a written statement. “The matter was resolved and you made it an issue. Clearly you’re not interested in working together.”

Jansen admitted Gilkerson had reached out multiple times via email regarding the search, and Jansen said she responded with a page from their handbook regarding trustee conduct. Gilkerson said that she had also apologized via email if she had hurt Jansen’s feelings due to the proposed censure.

Jansen accused Gilkerson again of bringing up these issues to “embarrass” her, and Gilkerson said she was only bringing it up due to the fact that she was taken off the committee without notice.

“Yeah, because you hurt my feelings,” Jansen said.

“Well, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”

“This is why we have a divided community,” Jansen added. “Because you continue to attack me.”

Trustee Kangas said neither he nor Gilkerson were provided copies of what Jansen was proposing, either before or during the meeting.

“It just seems like the opposite of what we were trying to do last board meeting,” Kangas said in referring to Jansen’s decision to not engage a firm to seek candidates nationally.

Jansen said the last time a superintendent search took place, a national firm was used and the hire, Keith Lewis, was chosen from inside the district. Therefore, she said, it’s unnecessary and a waste of money.

Burns echoed Jansen, stating that the Washoe County School District has used national searches in their superintendent selection, but have gone through “five superintendents in five years,” which is not accurate. In fact, in the past nine years, there have only been three superintendents employed with the Washoe County School District: Traci Davis, Kristen McNeill, and the most recent superintendent Susan Enfield who recently announced her resignation.

The board voted to approve the job description.

Public Records Policy Changes

Trustees approved upon first reading multiple changes to the Public Records Policy.

Among these changes include the removal of language authorizing the superintendent or their designee to handle public records requests.

In addition, a fee for records requests will be enacted at $0.50 per page.

If the estimated fee of the request exceeds $25, the district may request a deposit from the requester, and shall require the person to pay the fee in full before the copy will be provided.

The policy changes can be read here. This item will return for a second reading.

In other items

— Trustees approved a feasibility study for lake school parking fees aimed towards visitors and tourists to help offset costs associated with tourism issues such as trash, beach cleanups and sanitation.

— An addendum was approved to acting superintendent Jeanette Dwyer, who serves as the Executive Director of Inclusive Education. The terms can be read in their entirety here.