WESTOVER — Somerset County Public Schools has rescheduled its budget work session originally set for Tuesday, Feb. 11 to 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13 at the board office in Westover.

This is a public session with members of the Board of Education present as well as the superintendent and executive staff and will be broadcast online at https://townhallstreams.com/towns/Somerset_County_PS_MD.

A special board meeting will follow, according to board Chair Matt Lankford. Among the items to be discussed is Policy 100-18 titled “Board Attorney Appointment/Fees” which describes “the process for attorney selection and the establishments of fees.”

Vice Chair Andrew Gleason at last month’s regular board meeting said the board's counsel, by policy, will be appointed or reappointed each January — however when the board made its selection in October 2023 it did not follow policy and have a committee “consisting of a quorum of Board members and four staff members” to interview the applicants.

Mr. Gleason voted in 2023 against the recommended firm, Carney, Kelehan, Bresler, Bennett & Scherr, which is represented by attorney Darren Burns, and at that time said policy was not followed by not having interviews.

“This governing board did not see interviews,” Mr. Gleason said at last month's meeting. “I expressed those concerns, but for lack of a better term, was ignored, and the board voted.”

At the January meeting, Mr. Gleason motioned that the board “complete all of the steps” including releasing a new request for proposals and follow the policy to complete the appointment process, which is to occur every five years.

“Intentional or not, it didn’t happen, and we never saw interviews,” Mr. Gleason said, and former Chair Bill McInturff said the board did see questions and answers on a matrix, but there was not an interview phase.

Mr. Burns said his law firm responded to the board’s request for proposals in 2023 in good faith, and its prices and services are listed. He acknowledged, however, that he was not aware of an interview occurring, in fact when the board voted, he was not present. 

“We’ve got to follow policy, we can’t expect everybody else to follow policy if we don’t follow policy,” Mr. Lankford said during the January meeting, with the vote 3-0-1 with Mary Beth Bozman joining Mr. Gleason and Mr. Lankford, while Mr. McInturff abstained. Allen Ford was absent.

To be sure that legal representation continues Mr. McInturff made a motion approved by all members present that Mr. Burns and his law firm remain on as counsel during this process.