On Friday evening I interviewed local pundit Dan Rylance on Radio Commentary. The interview can be found here. During the second half of the program Dan and I talked about how the majority of school board candidates believe that current board member Don Sween should not vote on the district budget because he is a retired teacher who could benefit from the package voted on. Dan makes the point that the opposition to Sween voting is a carry over from the "McHugh Doctrine" established on the board a few years ago when then school board president Dennis McHugh insisted that board member Theresa Thiel could not vote on the budget because her husband is a teacher in the district. Current board members Ben Schneider II and Dan Becker have taken the lead in applying the McHugh Doctrine to Mr. Sween.Dan Rylance wonders if Mr. McHugh, a retired city employee who is now a candidate for Oshkosh Common Council, will apply the McHugh Doctrine to himself. As a retired city employee, the city budget directly affects him. If elected, will he recuse himself from voting on the budget?
6 comments:
Tony,
I like the idea you (or Dan) had on the radio regarding McHugh and Sween. We elected Don Sween to do 100% of the job requirements to be on the BOE. He currently is not able to fulfill that. Why can't the budget be separated so that Mr. Sween can vote on the bulk of the budget and the other six vote on the retirement portion? I would ask the same about the city budget. We should try to get the most for the money we pay them.
The story as I understand it is certain board members (Mr. B and Mr. Sc) threatened to sue Mr. Sween and see to it that his benefits were discontinued if he dared to vote on the budget, (don't believe they could have his benefits discontinued but it would be an ugly fight) then the lawyers got involved and it got even messier and the end result was that the retirement benefits were not separated out from the rest of the budget (something [removing the conflict portion of the budget] mind you that is done in several other cities Green Bay to name one).
I sure hope someone is going to ask Mr. McHugh the question Mr. Rylance posed... will he recuse himself from budget votes since he is a retired city employee?
I wish Dan Rylance would've done his homework before passing erroneous information concerning my supposed conflict of interest in voting on a city budget as a retired city employee. Fact is, Dan, unlike the teacheers union where labor agreements sometimes apply also to retired teachers, city labor agreements contain absolutely no provsions for retirees.
Does that mean Mr. McHugh receives no benefits paid out of the city's budget? Just trying to understand things here.
Anonymous 1:56pm,
What was that information about Mr. Sween? Becker has only been on the board for three years, so it would have had to have been in the last three years that Becker and Schneider threatened to sue Sween for voting on the budget. Is that even possible? I haven't heard anything about this. Where do you get your information from and when did this happen?
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