LITTLE ROCK — Two courts saw activity Wednesday in lawsuits involving Superintendent Roy Brooks.
And the agenda of the Little Rock School Board - which meets tonight - may include an item finalizing the amount of money that would be paid to Brooks to buy out his contract. That amount could be as much as $660,000, not counting any legal fees the district may ultimately pay on Brooks' behalf.
In Pulaski County Circuit Court, Judge Tim Fox added a single finding of fact Wednesday to his July 30 order concerning the legality of the Little Rock School Board's plan to buy out the last two years on Brooks' contract.
Pressed by attorneys for a taxpayer group that opposed the buyout to rule on whether the buyout violated Article 14 of the state constitution, Fox issued a one-sentence order saying "that the actions of the Board of Education were constitutional pursuant to Article 14, Sections 2 and 3 of the Arkansas Constitution."
John Gill, an attorney for the taxpayer group led by Teresa Gray, told Fox earlier this week that the question of whether the School Board violated the constitution by providing severance pay to Brooks needed to be answered so that a complete record can be presented in the Arkansas Supreme Court if there is an appeal of Fox's ruling.
In federal court on Wednesday, Terrence Cain, who is an attorney for Little Rock School Board President Katherine Mitchell and School Board member Mike Daugherty, asked U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele for more time to prepare a response to Brooks' pending request for nearly $70,000 in legal fees from the district.
The fees are those expended by Brooks in his federal lawsuit against School Board members to stop a board hearing on deciding whether he should be suspended from his job pending the outcome of a later termination hearing. Brooks also sought to bar Mitchell and Daugherty from participating in any hearing to decide his employment status because he said they had threatened potential witnesses who would testify on his behalf.
Brooks was successful in stopping the suspension hearing, but the judge did not bar participation by Mitchell and Daugherty in employment decisions.
In his request for a 10-day extension of the Aug. 10 deadline, Cain said he was initially out of town and couldn't work on the response. Upon his Aug. 1 return, he had to prepare for Wednesday's interview of Mitchell by the Pulaski County sheriff's office.
"The sheriff's interview arose as a result of an allegation that Dr. Mitchell violated Arkansas Code Annotated 6-24-104," Cain said in the filing.
That statute prohibits members of governing boards from accepting employment or contracts from the agency in which they serve on the board.
Bob Powers, a Little Rock district resident, filed a complaint with the prosecuting attorney's office in which he accused Mitchell of accepting payment from the district for her work in a nontraditionalteacher licensure program run by the school district in 2004 and 2005.
"The allegation itself arose in large measure, if not solely, from the facts and circumstances that gave rise to this case," Cain wrote to Eisele. "While the allegation is baseless and made in bad faith," Cain also wrote, "Dr.Mitchell nevertheless has to go through numerous time consuming procedures to vindicate herself (perhaps that was the intent of her accuser in making the allegation)."
Contacted Wednesday, Mitchell confirmed that she was supposed to meet with sheriff's office officials Wednesday morning. The interview was cut short when she declined on the advice of her attorney to sign a waiver of her rights prior to being questioned.
"The investigator said that because I wouldn't sign, he couldn't ask me any questions," Mitchell said.
She said she expects that the results of the investigation will be turned over soon to the prosecuting attorney, who will decidewhether to file any charges.
The Little Rock School Board has an agenda meeting at 5 p.m. today. Mitchell said a special meeting will follow that regular session for the purpose of conducting an employee hearing. She also hoped to place on the agenda for the special meeting a proposed buyout payment to Brooks. However, she said she needed to confer with the district's attorneys today to determine whether they had finalized what the buyout package should be.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 08/09/2007