Howard County Board of Education members want lawmakers from the county to sponsor state legislation that would make it easier for them, and other county school boards, to operate in secret.

They are proposing the repeal of stringent local laws that require open meetings. With those laws gone, the Maryland State Open Meetings Act, which allows more meetings behind closed doors, would prevail.

"If what they're looking for is to be less subject to having open meetings regardless of whether it's under county or state law, I'm strongly opposed to that," said Howard Del. Elizabeth Bobo, a Democrat. "They've had too many closed meetings in the last several years, anyway. ... What are they trying to hide?"

School board Chairwoman Jane B. Schuchardt said the board wants the change for "housekeeping" purposes, not for more secrecy.

"It's really nothing," she said. "It just lets us do the things we need to do: sit down with the superintendent and talk about what goes on in a school, or letters from parents, or just get information. As a group, the board members feel that this [exclusion] has caused us not to be as informed as we feel we should be."

The board hopes to do away with three laws in the state's education code that govern open-meeting and recordkeeping practices. Two of the provisions apply specifically to the Howard County board, but the third applies to all local boards and could change the nature of private meetings across the state.

Removing these laws would allow the board to take advantage of an "executive function" exemption in the state Open Meetings Act, which allows for public bodies to meet in private, with no community notice and no recordkeeping.

"There are those who characterize it as an enormous loophole," said Assistant Attorney General Jack Schwartz, who also serves as counsel to the State Open Meetings Compliance Board.

"It was originally put in the law to take care of the needs of governing bodies of small jurisdictions where the same group of folks is both the legislative body, like the town council, and the executive [body]."

Interpretation at issue

The thinking was that small-town officials shouldn't have to be burdened with all of the procedures that go along with the open-meetings requirements when they are performing managerial - or executive - functions.

But the exemption is embraced by many public bodies of all sizes. It says the Open Meetings Act does not apply in certain situations, namely "the application of an already established law or policy," according the Open Meetings Compliance Board Manual.

It's a broad definition that many say is open to interpretation and abuse.

"If they repeal the [open-meeting] laws, the Board of Education for Howard County would not have to conduct all of its business in the open, which the current law says," said Allen Dyer, an Ellicott City lawyer and parent who is suing the board in county Circuit Court on allegations of open-meetings violations. "The executive function eliminates any and all accountability to the public. There would be no minutes, no recording, no nothing."

The board is seeking increased privacy at a time when it faces criticism from legislators for actions taken behind closed doors, including a preliminary agreement on an expensive employment extension offer to Superintendent John R. O'Rourke.

"We have laws for a reason," said Howard Del. Frank S. Turner, a Democrat. "The school board ought to start following them."

The board was supposed to vote on the proposed open-meetings amendment Nov. 14 and forward its request to the county's legislative delegation.

But it did not because the school system's director of operations, who drafted the proposal, was in the hospital and unable to present his report. The recommendation could still go to the delegation and be introduced as legislation if board members act at their meeting Tuesday, Turner said.

Revision considered

The proposal has been under consideration for some time.

In December last year, school board member Patricia S. Gordon sent a letter to Bobo asking the delegate to consider introducing legislation "to correct the omission of the Executive Function from that section governing our meetings."

Bobo wrote to the state attorney general's office and received a response in January from Assistant Attorney General Robert A. Zarnoch, who concluded that the "multiple enactments raise a host of interpretive issues" and that "legislative clarification is in order."

Bobo thought the proposed legislation would accomplish that, so she drafted a bill asking that the Howard County Board of Education be subject solely to the state's Open Meetings Act and then tabled it at the request of the board, which wanted to wait until the lawsuit with Dyer was settled before proceeding.

Then, Bobo said, the board prepared a resolution without her knowledge, which the delegate said was extremely upsetting - particularly because she hadn't considered that it might lead to less public involvement.

Now, Bobo said, she thinks the executive-function loophole might be the problem.

"Perhaps what we need to do is amend the state open-meetings law," she said.