The Baltimore County school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a new contract for Superintendent Dallas Dance, but one member is seeking a delay after an ethics complaint was filed Monday against Dance.
School board chair Charles McDaniels said board member Ann Miller requested the delay several days ago and forwarded some of the materials contained in the ethics complaint.
"My personal interpretation is that it would not interfere with the vote moving forward," McDaniels said, adding that he would cancel the vote only if the majority of the board opposed taking it.
Dance's four-year term ends June 30, but the board voted in February to renew his contract. His salary and other details have been under negotiation since then, according to McDaniels.
McDaniels said he would not make the contract public before the vote is taken. Attorneys representing the school board and Dance were still completing details, McDaniels said.
Dance currently earns $275,000 and is one of the highest-paid superintendents in Maryland.
Miller believes the contract should be open to public scrutiny before the board votes to approve it.
"I think it all should be public, but I don't think it is my place to make it public," she said. "I believe in open government. There isn't a reason that it shouldn't be" public, she said.
Miller said she wants the board to hold off on the vote because a former teacher filed a complaint against Dance on Monday with the school board's ethics panel.
The ethics complaint filed by William Groth, a county resident, alleges that Dance violated the terms of his contract by offering his availability for paid speaking engagements at educational conferences. Groth sent a screen shot of a speakers bureau website showing Dance and listing his availability and a $5,000 speaking fee.
"There is an increasing trend for more speaking engagements by the superintendent and other BCPS staff," the complaint states. "The more extensive his speaking engagement schedule becomes, the harder it is to justify a legitimate school system benefit."
McDaniels said Miller told the board she has been working with Groth to look into the allegation of ethics violations.
Mychael Dickerson, a spokesman for Dance, said his portfolio on the website Orate.me is a fake that Dance had nothing to do with creating.
"Dr. Dance did not set up the Orate page and his personal attorneys are working with the company to find out who fraudulently created it," Dickerson said in an email. He added that Dance has followed the terms of his contract.
Dance said he cannot comment on the ethics complaint because he has not seen it. But, he said, he "suspected this" would happen.
"I have a board member who no matter what I do has something to say about it negatively."
He said he would comply with any requests the ethics panel makes of him.
Miller filed an extensive Maryland Public Information Act request in April seeking details about Dance's performance overall. She said the school system has failed to provide the information she requested.
"We don't have all the information that we have requested, and there have been a lot of issues raised because of the ethics complaint and we have not had an opportunity for full discussion," said Miller, whose recent appointment to the board by Gov. Larry Hogan was protested by some county residents and County Executive Kevin Kamenetz.
The school system, in a letter to Miller, has said that some of the information she requested is not currently available in document form. Public bodies in Maryland do not have to create documents in response to a request, although they must turn over existing documents.