The Harford County Board of Education appears to be in need of a refresher course in government, otherwise it wouldn't have voted to retain a lawyer whose sole purpose is to advise the board when the board has a legal dispute with the superintendent.
Granted, the county council and county executive have respective, and sometimes adversarial, legal representation. This makes sense because the executive and legislative branches were established to be adversarial. The executive proposes a budget, the council (the county's legislature) reviews and amends it. The executive proposes a law, the council debates, amends and approves or rejects it. It makes sense that each branch would have its own legal representation, otherwise a lawyer who held sway over both branches could end up as the de facto county leader, or an advocate for one branch against the other.
On the surface, it may appear the board of education and the superintendent of schools have roles that are analogous to those of county council and county executive, but the analogy breaks down on the most cursory of examinations. That's because the superintendent is, first and foremost, an employee of the board of education. The board negotiates a contract and hires the superintendent, and, as has been done in the past, the board can terminate its contract with a superintendent.
Historically, school board members have been appointed by the governor to serve as the public's eye on the school system. More recently in Harford County, some board members are elected by the people, again to represent the interests of the public and to set general education policy.
Given the part-time volunteer status of board members, it generally has been the practice of superintendents to propose policies and present them to the board while also managing the day to day operations of the school system. This practice gives the superintendent a great deal of responsibility and authority and, unfortunately, school board members sometimes appear to believe they act in an advisory capacity to the superintendent, or even that they work for their highest ranking employee.
The reality that the board is boss to both the superintendent and the school system's lawyer suggests this is another example of the school board failing to recognize where it fits into the organizational chart. To set the record straight, the organizational chart goes from top to bottom like this: voters at the top, then the governor for some school board members, then the school board, then the superintendent of schools and then the school system's lawyer on staff.
Strangely, the reason cited for the board having decided to retain an outside lawyer is a portion of Superintendent Robert Tomback's contract that allows him to hire an outside lawyer, at school system expense, should conflicts between the board and superintendent arise. (Tomback's contract, incidentally, is up for renewal in the next 15 months – at the school board's discretion, we hasten to point out.)
So now the taxpayers are in the unenviable position of potentially having to pay a school board lawyer, a superintendent's lawyer and the full time lawyer who has been representing the school system for many years at an annual salary of $133,000.
This is a situation that is ridiculous and expensive. If a board of governors' appointees and elected members can't deal with the person they have entrusted to run the single largest and most important public agency in the county, without first having to talk to each other through lawyers, then someone isn't doing a very good job.