Friday, February 06, 2015

Joplin R-8 Board to meet in special closed session

The Joplin R-8 Board of Education will hold a special meeting 11:30 a.m. Monday at the Administration Building at 32nd and Duquesne.

After the roll call and approval of the agenda, the board will immediately go into a closed session, with the bulk of the meeting expected to involve preparing a response for state auditors.

Ittems listed for the closed session are legal, real estate, personnel, identifiable personnel records, and communications with auditors.

The auditors met with the board Tuesday, January 27, to reveal their findings. The board now has the opportunity to respond to those findings and tell how or if it intends to correct problems the auditors have uncovered.

The public release of the complete audit is expected to take place either the last week of February or the first week of March.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh well, now, what is there to fear? CJ said all is well and has thanked the auditor for all of his help setting them back on the right track, so this litte meeting should be downright festive. After all, we all know it was all...

For the kids,
Anon

Anonymous said...

Can someone explain why this is allowed under closed session? What are they protecting?

Anonymous said...

communications with auditors. is not a legal reason to go into closed session

Randy said...

It is legal for the board to meet in closed session to go over the auditor's report. From the Sunshine Law, a closed session is allowed for this:

Confidential or privileged communications between a public governmental body and its auditor, including all auditor work product; however, all final audit reports issued by the auditor are to be considered open records pursuant to this chapter

Anonymous said...

question is can the state auditor be considered its auditor? The word for this is cookin
the books...

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @7:12: The state auditor gets the last word in, and unlike the school board's normal auditing firm, is in theory working for the people of Missouri, not the school board.

All this is about is formulating the reply to the first draft of the state auditor's findings. For example, if corners were cut during the emergency period to reopen the schools by the end of the summer, I'd expect the board to explain why they did that, and promise not to do it again unless another tornado wipes out a number of their buildings.

Beyond that period, I suspect they've "got some 'splainin' to do."

Anonymous said...

Do they now hold meetings during the day so that the privileged socialites can create an added hardship on the BOE members with day jobs?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @6:29 AM: Something, I don't know what, tells me this is going to be a long session (perhaps the first of several), and one where the people running the board, such as Huff and Sharp, are going to have to actually do a lot of serious work, as opposed to what's almost a scripted PR event (and would be without that turbulent Debbie Fort).

Anonymous said...

Oh to be a fly on the wall!

Anonymous said...

Do you think they'll bring their own lunch?

Anonymous said...

Sharp needs to remember that she works for the voters, not for CJ, and the only slim chance she has of being reelected to resume her hobby for another three years is to be CJ's boss for a change and not his servant. She is part of the team that allowed this mess to be made. It's time to take responsibility for the mess and hold the guilty accountable. Failure to do that will be her downfall, if it's not too late already.
Since McGrew is part of BF USA/Huff USA, he should be sent out. There is no objectivity there, since his little job came from the man he whom he is supposed to oversee. CJ's contract should be payment enough. He doesn't need anything else from McGrew.

Anonymous said...

The board needs to remember that failure to hold CJ accountable will appear to be collusion. And we will remember in April, or sooner, if the chance to prosecute arises.