The following letter was mailed out last week - probably received by the recipients on Tuesday following the Monday holiday. Since I mailed it, there has been a suggestion copies should be sent to the Minority leaders of the Maine Senate and House of Representatives as well. That will be done this week.
Why the letter?
IF current Maine law does not mandate an employee (whether he/she is a school district or any level of government) to exhaust all administrative levels of appeal before he/she can take any employment-related complaint (such as termination) to the courts, such employees are always going to be in a position to hold taxpayers hostage to potentially unjust financial compensation. (And the taxpayers can end up having to pay the costs incurred by both parties.) In such cases, the law is faulty and needs to be corrected - particularly Maine school law.
Since the Maine Legislature appoints the Commissioner of Education - rather than the position, among other, being one elected by the people of the state - those members of the Legislature need to be accountable to the taxpayers if and when current law does not protect the taxpayers. After all, we are the ones who will be ultimately saddled with the bill.
On the other hand, if current law does require an employee of a school district to exhaust all administrative remedies prior to taking such issues to the courts, the Maine Commissioner of Education needs to be held accountable to someone for allowing the current legal situation (between the former superintendent of SAD 63 and the School Board) to have reached the level of irresponsible legal costs due to the actions of the former superintendent and her legal counsel.
So, this is what the letter said:
*****
October 9, 2009
Ms. Susan A. Gendron, Commissioner
Department of Education
23 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0023
RE: Louise M. Regan v. SAD 63 et al
Dear Commissioner Gendron;
As a taxpayer and voter in the town of Eddington who has been closely following the lawsuit between former SAD Superintendent Regan and the SAD 63 School Board that terminated her employment, I am extremely disappointed with your failure to insist that Ms. Regan exhaust her post-termination administrative remedy under state law before proceeding with any other legal filings. By your office’s failing to act in this manner, you have caused an unnecessary financial burden on the taxpayers of the communities within SAD 63.
Not only have Ms. Regan and her attorneys avoided what your office should have required as soon as the predeprivation due process was completed, they have continued to drag the matter through numerous filings and hearings at both the state and U.S. District Court level accruing extraordinary legal costs for both the plaintiff and defendants. Only now that the potential date for a jury trial is being discussed in Penobscot County Court for April 2010, nearly three years after the fact, is the plaintiff asking the court to schedule an Alternative Dispute Resolution – a negotiated settlement - which we, the taxpayers, will be saddled with even if we do not believe the School Board acted inappropriately.
In my opinion, the failure of your office to act has resulted in our School Board and us, the voters and taxpayers, being held hostage to the irresponsible behavior of the plaintiff and her legal counsel.
Sincerely,
Ms. Rusty Gagnon, M.A.
Cc: Governor John Baldacci
Attorney General Janet Mills
Speaker of the House Hannah M. Pinngree
Senate President Elizabeth H. Mitchell
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