Baltimore School Board to Hold Emergency Meeting

In light of all the hubbub about the Baltimore School budget from this week, the City's School Board has scheduled an emergency meeting at 7:00pm on April 19 (a little more than a week from now).

Officials announced last night that they will have an "independent third party" review next school year's budget before the meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. April 19 at school system headquarters, but they declined to say who that party is.

But even the announcement of the emergency meeting is not without controversy.

The board held an emergency meeting yesterday morning to discuss the budget. Advance notice of the meeting was not posted on the system's Web site.

Spokeswoman Edie House said meeting notices were posted "in their normal posting places" in the lobby at system headquarters and on a door upstairs in the school board office, located in an area of the building that the public cannot access without an appointment.

House said she was not at the meeting and so could not say what happened.

For the past year, The Sun has repeatedly requested that the system post online notices of its emergency meetings or e-mail the notices to the media, as surrounding school districts routinely do.

In October, officials agreed to post agendas and relevant documents for its regularly scheduled meetings on a new Web site. But they have continued announcing emergency meetings by taping paper notices inside system headquarters - a practice that is legally permissible, but requires any member of the public who wishes to track the meetings to go to the building daily.

The whole affairs smacks of a more than a little CYA on the part of the school board. The School Board continues to insist the budget is sound but neither the school board, Mayor Sheila Dixon or the City Council can explain why the current budget also contains significant errors.

One thing is for sure, the third party selected for review had better have no previous ties to any of the school board members and better yet, no ties to Baltimore or Maryland. In fact a smallish accounting firm from Alaska is their best bet politically. But that probably won't happen. I am sure the Sun is flexing their investigative muscle once the third party reviewer becomes public.