School Board, Brooks reach an agreement

LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock School Board and outgoing Superintendent Roy Brooks agreed Tuesday afternoon to a $635,000 buyout package for Brooks.

The board vote was a unanimous 7-0.

The package will compensate Brooks for the two years remaining on his district contract, as well as any and all of his legal claims against the state's largest district.

The details of the settlement were negotiated over the past several weeks but finalized by attorneys for the school district and Brooks shortly before the hastily called, sparsely attended board meeting. Board membersacted on the settlement without seeing a written version. That document is expected to be available today, a time when Brooks or a third party acting on his behalf will receive a check from the district.

"There's a lot of compromise involved anytime you negotiate something," Mike Moore, an attorney with the Friday, Eldredge and Clark law firm, which represented the board in the settlement talks, told the School Board. "I believe it is in the best interest of the district to settle the matter at this time and for this amount."

Brooks and one of his attorneys from the Williams & Anderson law firm attended the10-minute board meeting and confirmed that an agreement was reached, but they refused to comment further.

Moore said in an interview that Brooks' employment with the district could end today with the settlement payment, but School Board President Katherine Mitchell said it was her understanding that Brooks' last day will be Friday.

The settlement comes weeks after the School Board voted May 24 to exercise a clause in Brooks' contract that allows the board to unilaterally cancel the contract by giving Brooks at least 90 days' notice and all the compensation he would have earned had he fulfilled the two years remaining in his contract with the district. It was estimated at the time that Brooks, 57, could be entitled to as much as $656,357, not counting any legal fees the district might have to pay on his behalf.

"We have had a lot of numbers run back and forth," Moore told the board. "And there were a lot of components in the negotiations that complicated it. We finally got to a point ... where I told them that if we could decide on a total number, then they could decide how to split the money up."

Moore said the $635,000 includes severance pay to Brooks, attorneys' fees, payment to the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, payment to the federal government for Medicare taxes, some payment to his annuity fund and pre-payment for both long-term disability and life insurance.

Moore did not specify the amounts earmarked for each provision of the settlement, but Brooks' annual salary is $198,000 plus benefits, which included a yearly $25,000 payment to an annuity fund.

Regarding his legal fees, Brooks asked a federal court to order the district to pay him about $70,000 in legal fees and expenses for a lawsuit he filed against the board in late April to stop a board hearing to suspend him. That particular fee request covered only the federal lawsuit and not Brooks' legal fees incurred before the lawsuit or in the weeks after its resolution.

As part of the settlement,Moore said, Brooks is waiving any and all claims he has against the district and the district will waive any claims it has against him.

"That includes any claim he has asserted or not or that we have asserted or not up to the present," Moore said. "That would include all claims for attorneys' fees. The agreement will also provide that Dr. Brooks will not seek re-employment with the district and has no right of reinstatement."

Under the agreement, the district will defend Brooks in any pending lawsuits against him and the district, and Brooks will cooperate with the school district and its attorneys in defending the district and himself in those lawsuits.

In an interview later, Moore said that as a result of the settlement between the superintendent and the district, "we will walk away from each other and not have to have any controversy."

The agreement does not deal with a lawsuit now pending before the Arkansas SupremeCourt dealing with the legality of a publicly financed buyout of an agency head.

A group of Little Rock School District residents sued the School Board and the district earlier this summer tostop the district from using taxpayer funds to buy out Brooks' contract. The lawsuit, filed by a five-member group headed by school district parent Teresa Gray, argued that the Arkansas Constitution requires tax funds be used for the maintenance and operation of a school district and that paying someone with tax dollars to not work is unconstitutional.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox determined that the district's buyout of Brooks is constitutional. The taxpayer group has appealed Fox's ruling to the state Supreme Court.

School Board member Baker Kurrus asked Moore at the Tuesday meeting what would happen to the settlement "in the off chance" that the Supreme Court rules that a publicly funded severance package is unconstitutional.

"If that occurs, is there any provision in the agreementto unwind the deal?" Kurrus asked. "Where do we go if that occurs?"

Moore speculated that once the money is paid to Brooks, the only power the court would have would be to recover the money from Brooks.

"The Arkansas Supreme Court could say the provision for payment [in the contract] is unconstitutional, but we have made this agreement in settlement of his contract and any other claims he has asserted, including claims in federal court and his claims of breach of contract," Moore explained. "The way the settlement is structured gives more strength to the argument that it is not an illegal exaction - it is not payment of severance pursuant to the contract alone - but it is payment in settlement of claims that have been made."

Board member Dianne Curry commended Moore and Brooks for resolving the issue so that the district of nearly 26,600 studentscan move forward.

Board member Melanie Fox questioned Moore about the need for a special meeting called with only two hours' notice. Moore said he was told to negotiate a settlement as quickly as possible and that was accomplished Tuesday afternoon.

The unanimous vote Tuesday is a rarity on a board that has consistently voted along racial lines when dealing with Brooks. Even the vote to hire Brooks in 2004 was not unanimous and, in recent months, there has been a consistent 4-3 divide in the push to remove Brooks from the job.

Board member Mike Daugherty moved Tuesday to approve the settlement proposal. It was seconded by board member Charles Armstrong.

Daugherty, Armstrong, Curry and Board President Katherine Mitchell, all of whom are black, are the members of the board majority that favored a change of superintendent. Kurrus, Fox and Larry Berkley, who are white, have opposed Brooks' removal.

Linda Watson, the district's senior director of student services, was selected in July to succeed Brooks as interim superintendent. The board is expected to finalize a contract for her at its meeting Thursday night.

Mitchell said after the meeting that it pleased her to have the vote on the settlement over with.