Will the Hamilton County Commission ever quit trying to control the Hamilton County school board and let board members do the job they were elected to do?
There was a glimmer of hope last fall, when school board elections swung the pendulum of power on the board to a 5-4 reactionary majority. The newly empowered members were aligned with the commission on at least one major issue: They were eager to force the ouster of then-Superintendent Jim Scales. And after they did so, they boldly trashed school board codes that mandated a national search and public interviews to select his successor.
The board’s new ruling faction then quickly appointed Rick Smith, a local assistant superintendent who had long waited in the wings for the job despite his lack of a doctoral degree. His appointment seemed sure to finally assuage the Fred Skillern-led faction of the County Commission, which for years had wanted Smith in the job, had wanted to direct the school system’s budget and priorities, and had long used the power of the purse to punish the independently elected school board for not bending to its will.
An interlude in meddling
For a brief interim, county commissioners talked as if they were ready to let the school board conduct the business it was created to perform. Indeed, commissioners, citing new confidence in the reformulated board, recently talked about restoring to the board’s control millions of dollars annually in PILOT funds. These are the payments-in-lieu-of-taxes that new businesses, like Volkswagen – which have received general property tax abatements for building their plants here – still must pay to support public education.