LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A South Carolina-based contractor has finished its evaluation of the collective bargaining agreement between the Jefferson County Board of Education and the local teachers union, but the Kentucky Department of Education has refused to release the report.
The state agency requested the examination as part of its 14-month audit of Jefferson County Public Schools and denied an open records request for the document, claiming attorney-client privilege.
Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, a law firm based in Columbia, S.C., got a contract worth up to $22,750 for the work from March 30 through June 30, less than two months before the school board and Jefferson County Teachers Association negotiated and approved a new five-year deal.
KDE spokeswoman Jessica Fletcher said the agency will not release the examination because it was created by a legal expert as part of the audit. Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis recommended that JCPS be under state management as a result of the audit, but both sides hammered out an agreement that avoided a potentially costly legal battle.
That settlement and the fact that the school board and JCTA reached a new five-year deal are other factors in the agency’s decision not to release the analysis, Fletcher said.
While Lewis and former Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt both indicated that the collective bargaining agreement analysis would be released once complete, “these statements were made during the audit process and again at a time when there was anticipated litigation, including an administrative hearing during which the collective bargaining analysis may have been introduced as an exhibit,” Fletcher wrote in an email to WDRB News on Thursday.
“The parties entered into the settlement agreement out of a desire to engage in a collaborative and cooperative process to improve the governance and administration of JCPS,” she wrote in the email. “In addition, JCTA and JCBE have entered into a new collective bargaining agreement, and the prior CBA that was the subject of Nelson Mullins’ analysis is no longer in effect.
“KDE is committed to the terms of the settlement agreement with JCBE and working in partnership with the district to make significant gains for the children of Jefferson County.”
KDE sought a waiver in December from the Finance and Administration Cabinet exempting the contract from competitive bidding after three prior requests for proposals yielded unsatisfactory responses, according to contract documents obtained through an open records request.
Nelson Mullins was tasked with evaluating contracts between the Jefferson County school board and JCPS employees and determining whether the contracts, negotiations and corresponding board policies “contribute to critically ineffective or inefficient management of the JCPS and other effects of these agreements and the negotiations on the JCPS,” according to the firm’s contract with KDE.
Nelson Mullins was also supposed to compare JCPS labor contracts with those in other school districts, determine what impacts outside influences had on contract negotiations, and identify mandatory, permissive and illegal subjects that could be bargained.
JCTA President Brent McKim said he spoke with representatives of Nelson Mullins two or three times during the course of their examination of the union’s previous contract.
Based on those conversations, McKim said he felt that Nelson Mullins was conducting “an objective analysis” rather than attempting to find fault in the collective bargaining agreement. They discussed various aspects of the contract, but McKim said he never saw a draft or final version of the examination.
While he said he’d be curious to see the final analysis, McKim said the matter is moot because it involves a contract that is no longer in effect. KDE’s decision not to release the report is “reasonable,” he said.
“It could be misleading to release that because if it identified either an issue or a strength, either one could have changed as a result of negotiations, so it’s really out of date as of the negotiation of the new agreement,” McKim told WDRB News.
Reach reporter Kevin Wheatley at 502-585-0838 and kwheatley@wdrb.com. Follow him on Twitter @KevinWheatleyKY.
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