The Round Rock ISD board of trustees met June 16 to take action on its proposed budget in a highly unusual meeting wherein Places 2 and 7 Trustees Mary Bone and Danielle Weston broke quorum shortly after it was called.
This interruption temporarily left the board without a quorum until Place 5 Trustee Amy Weir, who had been in attendance virtually because she is ill with COVID-19, could travel from her home and attend in person and restore the board's quorum. Place 1 Trustee Jun Xiao was not in attendance, his resignation having been accepted by the board earlier in the week.
The proposed budget was passed in a 4-0 vote, absent Xiao, Bone and Weston.
The district's budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year was required to be approved that night in order to ensure its over 7,000 employees are paid come July 1, board President Amber Feller said. With this knowledge, Feller described the departure of the two trustees as a "coordinated attack" intended to sabotage the meeting.
"Trustee Bone RSVP'd today that she was going to be attending this meeting," Feller said. "I was hopeful. One of my responsibilities as board president is to ensure that we have a quorum at every meeting. So I coordinated with Trustee Weir for her as a backup plan in case something like this happened."
She also clarified that Weir's symptoms began June 12, making June 16 the fifth day since onset and allowing her to be on campus in compliance with the district's COVID-19 guidelines. She spent the meeting at a separate desk near an air purifier, behind a plexiglass barrier and wearing a mask. Weir had been participating in the meeting virtually until quorum was broken by Bone and Weston's departure.
"Had Trustees Bone and Weston stayed, there would have been no reason to ask Trustee Weir to come in person," Feller said in a later statement.
Place 6 Trustee Tiffanie Harrison said she also felt the disruption to be a coordinated effort, intended to force the Texas Education Agency to determine that the board needed to be placed under a conservatorship if it could not pass its budget. In Texas, school boards like RRISD's that have a July 1 start to the fiscal year are statutorily required to pass a budget before June 30, according to the Texas Association of School Boards. The district, which is closed on Fridays outside of the school year, will also be closed from June 20-July 5, rendering June 16 the last day to pass a budget before this deadline.
When reached for comment, Weston told Community Impact that she left the meeting because she had observed a desk placed away from the dais with a plexiglass barrier and Weir's nameplate resting on it, and overheard trustees saying that Weir was on her way to the meeting.
"Knowing that Weir is [COVID-19]-positive and a trustee’s husband almost died of [COVID-19], I was worried about the health and safety of trustees and meeting attendees," she stated. "I take COVID[-19] just as seriously today as I did two years ago."
Bone echoed Weston's statement, and said she left the meeting due to COVID-19 concerns after noticing the additional desk and asking the board president if Weir might be in attendance.
"She mumbled that she might be coming for the budget," Bone stated. "I am not willing to risk the health of my family or the public, so I decided I should leave. [COVID-19] has impacted my family, and I take contiguous viruses like [COVID-19] seriously and understand the impact their transmission can have on our community."
In a statement to Community Impact Newspaper, Weir said she found the two trustees' reasoning in stark contrast with previous attitudes toward COVID-19, and clarified that she had no intention of attending the board meeting in person unless absolutely necessary to maintain quorum.
“I find it hypocritical that the two trustees who were against masks, said they were illegal, who stated numerous times that the district’s COVID[-19] protocol did not apply to trustees, used COVID[-19] to excuse their behavior," Weir said. "President Feller and I did what was necessary to protect the staff of the district by ensuring the budget passed and they would receive their paycheck in July."
Trustees Bone and Weston's absence comes as the board has been experiencing issues with establishing a quorum, having had some meetings over the past few months canceled for this reason. Harrison told Community Impact Newspaper that the board had prepared for an event such as the one that played out that night. Harrison also suggested that their reason for leaving was actually related to the budget and disagreements about the tax rate.
"This is what we're navigating around," Harrison said. "You cannot act like this and say that you care for students and staff. This behavior has nothing to do with students and staff. Essentially, it seems like it was catapulted by a $100 difference in taxes."
Among the items trustees ultimately decided to hold for a future meeting was a Student Health Advisory Council presentation to the board, a district committee that Harrison said had made time to come present to the board in person that night. Other presentations and actions include a status update for the current budget year, a report on the full-day pre-K-3 program and monthly reports from the board's TEA monitor.
