Edison board votes early
Community colleges
Term: One year
Policy: Florida statute 1001.61
Language: At its first regular meeting after July 1 of each year, each community college board of trustees shall organize by electing a chair, whose duty as such is to preside at all meetings of the board, to call special meetings thereof, and to attest to actions of the board, and a vice chair, whose duty as such is to act as chair during the absence or disability of the elected chair.
State universities
Term: Two years
Policy: FGCU Board of Trustees bylaw III.A.1.
Language: The term of office for chair and vice-chair shall begin on Feb. 1 and expire on the last day of January in the final year of said term. The chair shall serve for two (2) years and may be re-elected to serve three (3) additional consecutive two-year terms.
School boards
Term: One year
Policy: Florida statute 1001.371
Language: On the third Tuesday after the first Monday in November of each year, the district school board shall organize by electing a chair. It may elect a vice chair, and the district school superintendent shall act ex officio as the secretary.
Edison State College’s Board of Trustees has been jumping the gun each year on naming its chair and vice chair.
According to Florida statute, a trustee board at community and state colleges must select new leadership “at its first regular meeting after July 1 of each year.”
However, Edison trustees on June 28 voted Mary Lee Mann of Alva as chairwoman and Ann Berlam of Naples as vice chairwoman.
It wasn’t the first time Edison has taken an early vote, either. Meeting records show trustees selected new chairs in June for at least the past six years.
A college official on Friday defended the timing of the vote.
“The practice complies with the spirit of the statute and is necessary so that a chair is in place for the August meeting,” said Edison spokeswoman Teresa Morgenstern.
Other institutions, however, wait until after July 1 as outlined in Florida law. Trustees at Tallahassee Community College, for example, won’t select a new chair and vice chair until their Aug. 15 meeting, said Alice Maxwell, director of communications and public information.
Representatives for the Florida Department of Education and Florida attorney general declined to issue an opinion about Edison’s early votes.
Morgenstern said the chair’s term ends when the fiscal year wraps up June 30, so the board must appoint a new chair in time for the August meeting. Edison trustees don’t meet in July.
District President Kenneth Walker presented outgoing chairman Chris Vernon with a plaque and flowers for his wife at Tuesday’s meeting.
Voting rules are different for other educational boards in Florida.
Public universities must vote on leadership positions every two years, but state guidelines don’t specify a date. Florida Gulf Coast University’s trustee bylaws spell out that vote for mid-January of even-numbered years, and two-year terms run Feb. 1 to Jan. 30.
For school boards, language in Florida law is specific on the vote’s date – “on the third Tuesday after the first Monday in November of each year.”
“They can talk about it before then, but they can’t actually take the vote until then,” said Keith Martin, attorney for the Lee County school board.
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