Did Salem Superintendent withhold important info before school board elections? - Granite Grok

Did Salem Superintendent withhold important info before school board elections?

salemschooladminFor the past few weeks this author has been investigating the Salem School Administration from a right-to-know request that was actually sent on February 8th. The right-to-know request was regarding Cenergistic. The same company that was previously reported on thanks to the Windham School Board. What was discovered is much of the same and a bit worse.

If you recall, the Windham School Board passed a proposal to have Cenergistic implement its “energy behavioral” program without seeing the contract and without public input. After several articles and public outcry, the voters of Windham ended up ousting two of the school board members who shoved through the proposal.

The Salem School Board did exactly the same thing. They shoved through the proposal without reviewing the contract first and there doesn’t seem to have been any public input according to meeting minutes. On top of that, when this author filed a right-to-know request on February 8th, it was completely ignored in violation of the law. The sequence of events with links to verification is below.

June 30. 2014 – Email from Dr. Mark Joyce, Executive Director of New Hampshire School Administrators Association asking Superintendent Delahanty and Superintendent Nelson of Derry when they would like the Cenergistic representative to present a proposal to their school boards. Apparently there was a previous discussion about Cenergistic’s program at some point and this appears to be a follow up email.

August 5, 2015 – A ‘pre-meeting’ with Cenergistic is arranged between Nelson, Joyce and Delahanty in Derry. Delahanty says he’ll be bringing 2 or 3 people but doesn’t say who those people are and there are no notes from this ‘backroom’ meeting. During this meeting a presentation was apparently made in which Cenergistic claimed they would save Salem over $2 million with their program. The cost for this program is $575, 101. Interesting that the savings supposedly grows rather than gets less over time. You’d think that by putting in this program the savings would be heaviest in the first few years because behavior will have changed over those years.

August 19, 2014 – Cenergistic presentation to the board is scheduled. In the meeting minutes, it’s stated that Cenergistic’s program would save Salem Schools $169,000 the first year which would really be $58,000 after the associated fees.

September 16, 2014 – Board discusses Cenergistic and decides to table the discussion until more information is received. Motion carried 5-0.

September 23, 2014 – The Salem School Board unanimously votes for the Cenergistic proposal. It’s still not clear if the school board had the actual contract. The date stamps on contracts received by the Salem School Administration all state an October date.

October 15, 2014 – Superintendent Delahanty is informed that the Derry School Board opted not to pass the Cenergistic proposal, leaving Salem without their potential partner.

October 28, 2014 – That’s the date stamp on the Cenergistic contract that is apparently received by the Salem School Administration. This leads one to believe that the school board didn’t vote on the actual contract but only the proposal.

December 8, 2014 – Windham Business Administrator Adam Steel contacted Salem Business Administrator Linda MacDonald about Cenergistic. She directs him to Deborah Payne, the Director of Finance. Apparently a Director of Finance is also an expert in energy efficiency. It appears that Payne has been the point of contact for Cenergistic aside from Delahanty.

December 10, 2014 – Salem Director of Finance sends Steel an email discussing the Cenergistic deal. This email also shows that Payne and MacDonald were fully aware of Steel’s statement claiming they will not have an open bid on Cenergistic’s program. Clearly Steel didn’t tell Payne that the Windham School Board hadn’t seen the proposal or contract at this point.

January 7, 2015 – Steel emails Payne to let her know the Windham School Board signed the proposal the night before. This was the meeting where former Chairman Rekart had Steel call the police on Tom Murray for speaking out about signing this proposal without public input or any review by the board members.

February 6, 2015 – Cenergistic pulls out of the contract with Windham and fails in Rochester. This is reported on by yours truly on February 8th.

February 8, 2015 – This author sent 3 different school districts the same exact 91-A right to know request regarding Cenergistic – Dover, Salem and Rochester. Salem is the only district that violated the law and completely ignored the request. The reason Payne was included in the request is her name came up in the 91-A request from Windham:

Dear Superintendent Delahanty and Ms. Payne,

I’m writing to request a copy of all correspondence you may have regarding Cenergistic; plus any correspondence (including all emails and attachments) that relates to the proposal even if Cenergistic’s name is not mentioned. I want all correspondence between anyone in the Salem School District and outside of the school district related to the Cenergistic Proposal and Contract.

I’m requesting this public information under RSA 91-A.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I thank you for your cooperation.

Thank You,
Kimberly

February 10, 2015 – Salem Superintendent Delahanty sends an email to Cenergistic ending the contract claiming it was due to Windham not being a partner. It is also brought up at the Salem School Board meeting that night that there was publicity surrounding the Cenergistic contract with Windham and Delahanty suggests Salem pull out. The school board agrees although votes to leave the option open if there is another partner school interested.

February 18, 2015 – This author sent another follow up email to Delahanty and Payne regarding the 91-A request:

Hello,

I sent the following 91-A request on February 8, 2015. It is now February 18 and you have not responded.

Please respond regarding the requested information below.

February 26, 2015 – Delahanty finally responds to the 91-A request by claiming this author has to go into the office with a signed request in person and that they plan on charging hourly labor rates for any copies made. There is absolutely nothing in the law that claims a person has to go into any government office in person for a right-to-know request. They already violated the law by ignoring the request that they clearly received by responding. Below is the RSA:

IV. Each public body or agency shall, upon request for any governmental record reasonably described, make available for inspection and copying any such governmental record within its files when such records are immediately available for such release. If a public body or agency is unable to make a governmental record available for immediate inspection and copying, it shall, within 5 business days of request, make such record available, deny the request in writing with reasons, or furnish written acknowledgment of the receipt of the request and a statement of the time reasonably necessary to determine whether the request shall be granted or denied. If a computer, photocopying machine, or other device maintained for use by a public body or agency is used by the public body or agency to copy the governmental record requested, the person requesting the copy may be charged the actual cost of providing the copy, which cost may be collected by the public body or agency. Nothing in this section shall exempt any person from paying fees otherwise established by law for obtaining copies of governmental records or documents, but if such fee is established for the copy, no additional costs or fees shall be charged

March 5, 2015 – This author sent a response to Delahanty citing the RSA law; how they violated it and informing them they cannot charge hourly rates.Delahanty finally responds and claims it was a “misunderstanding” on his part. Conveniently he says the information that was requested on February 8th will not be available until the following week which is the week of Salem School Board elections.

March 10, 2015 – The date the documents for the right-to-know request will be available. The SAME date of the Salem School Board elections. Why is this important? Two members of the school board were up for re-election. These two members voted through the Cenergistic proposal without reviewing the contract first. They voted on an almost $600,000 contract without public input or research. The same exact thing Windham School Board members did.

This is a lot of detailed information to take in all at once. The main takeaways from all of this information are as follows:

  • Cenergistic was brought into the Salem School District without research and review of any other program or efficiencies. The cost of this program was almost $600,000.
  • Salem School Board members did not review the contract before voting it through. That includes board members Pamela Berry and Michael Carney who were both up for re-election on March 10th.
  • Superintendent Delahanty violated RSA 91-A by ignoring the request and then tried to make up new rules of how requests had to be made.
  • Superintendent Delahanty withheld information long after the law permits and specifically didn’t make it available until the day OF the school board elections. This was clearly intentional after seeing what happened in Windham where voters actually became outraged over the behavior of the school board members and many were backing new school board members. The two Windham School Board members who blindly voted through the Cenergistic proposal were ousted in the election.

Because Delahanty withheld this information from the public, voters had no idea what “back room deals” were going on with Cenergistic and the board. Had they known, they may have encountered the same situation as in Windham where a new resident decided to run for the school board and won. Salem voters weren’t given this opportunity although it’s interesting there were many votes for “blank” in the election, which is somewhat telling.

Essentially Salem voters were not given a complete picture of the school board members they were voting for. Had they been given a complete picture their votes may have been different. Had Salem voters understood what was going on with the Cenergistic contract they may have become more concerned with what the board was voting through and how their hard-earned money was being spent.

From all of the evidence provided, it seems that not only did Superintendent Delahanty keep information from Salem voters intentionally but he clearly didn’t want the same outrage over Cenergistic that he watched play out in Windham. It is clear that the Salem School District has transparency and accountability issues that trickle down from the top. What’s unclear is how Salem residents will treat this information or trust the school board going forward.

Cross posted from Examiner

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