New School Board Member Carletta Fellows, District 7, has been privately censured by the Board of Education. I watched a good portion of one of these School Board Meetings where Carletta Fellows votes against just about everything. She still has a lot to learn, you can see, about the procedure, pomp, and circumstance but quite frankly, I hope she never adapts. As a part of her learning process, she is asking questions about everything even if the issues have been discussed as nauseam. She asks questions about special warranty deeds, budget items, Request for Proposals, and more. Ha! You can see the patience of Verjeana Jacobs wearing thin with every Fellows follow-up. Ha! But back to her censure. According to the Board of Education Handbook, “The Board may, by majority vote, censure or reprimand a Member if the Member culpably fails to perform the duties of office or engages in other conduct that conflicts with the duties and responsibilities of office. Reference: Board Policy 109, “Conflict of Interest”; Board Policy 8251, “Code of Ethics”; Board Policy 9270, “Actions by Individual Board Members”, Robert’s Rules of Order”
Carletta Fellows, District 7
So what did she do? According to the Washington Post, “…not everyone has seen [Carletta Fellows] her moves as best for the school system. She has been labeled an obstructionist for her frequent questions at meetings and requests for additional documentation before often voting no or abstaining. Her outspokenness has not only irked her colleagues, but it also has resulted in the board taking the unusual step of privately censuring her. The board took the action during an executive session in late January. She has raised questions about the administration’s handling of the budget, the board’s awarding of contracts and its decisions to discuss certain issues in closed-door sessions.”
Before the board voted on the proposed budget, Fellows read a long statement that included a series of questions that she wanted to become part of the public record.
“When you subtract what was in the proposed FY 2014 operating budget book from the comprehensive annual financial report, the difference is $354,208,419,” Fellows said. “Therefore, I raise the question for the public record: Is there hundreds of millions of dollars that will be expended in FY 2014 which will not be disclosed to the public? . . . Which will not be reviewed and approved by the county executive and the County Council?” She ended her remarks by saying she could not vote for the budget because there was a “lack of disclosure and transparency.”
The Prince George’s County Board of Education has approved a $1.7 billion dollar budget for Fiscal Year 2014, a 1.7 percent increase ($28.9 million) more than last year’s budget. It looks like things are a might bit testy on the school board and Ms. Fellows is making more enemies than friends. I guess they did it without Carletta Fellows.
