CARTHAGE – Tensions continue to rise between the members of the Moore County Schools Board of Education with the latest spat being over an ethics violation complaint brought about by board member David Hensley.
Hensley, who was censured by the board earlier this year, claimed that members of the board, namely board chair Robert Levy, vice chair Shannon Davis, Stacey Caldwell and Pauline Bruno had accepted improper/illegal gratuities from an organization in which the board had contracted with.
“As everyone knows, the US Open was held here in Pinehurst over the summer, a very successful event, and the PGA came to us and asked to use our facilities and wanted a contract with Moore County Schools to use our facilities,” Hensley said. “As a body, we deliberated as we should and during the deliberations, a board member asked if we could get free tickets. My understanding is that four board members got VIP tickets to the US Open after participating in drafting and approving the contract. … We’re not talking about an insignificant amount of money, we’re talking about tickets to the US Open valued between $3,000 to $4,000 each.”
Caldwell and Davis both outright denied the claim, with both stating that neither had attended the US Open, however, Bruno did admit that she had accepted a ticket and had gone to the event.
“I was offered the tickets, never thought anything of it, never thought I was doing anything wrong and I went,” Bruno said. “I was so proud of our relationship with the PGA and I was so proud of Pinehurst. I did go and I did take the tickets. I never thought I was doing anything wrong.”
Levy did not state whether or not he accepted tickets, but did say he was in attendance at the US Open for the sole purpose of fundraising for the schools.
“This is not an inquiry or an inquisition and I’m not going to require any board member to answer Mr. Hensley’s question, but I will tell you that for every good deed, there is a just punishment,” Levy said. “My good deed was that I got together with Father Capodanno High School and got a pass from them and went to the US Open and sold beer at about $11 a can and water at $4 a can and in doing so, I earned money for North Moore High School and Father Capodanno. To say we went to the US Open for fun is terrible. I was very, very proud that that was my entire trip to the US Open and as I understand it, I earned some money.”
Levy went on further to state that Hensley’s claims had some sort of ulterior motive.
“To say there was improper gratuities is the wrong way to approach this,” Levy said. “I think you’re trying to besmirch the people on the board for something which I think is utterly and absolutely trivial. I don’t think there’s a single person on this board that solicited any tickets for anything that they shouldn’t have gotten.”
Despite that, Hensley doubled down on his claim.
“Our policies are our policies,” Hensley said. “The general statutes are our general statutes. We all attended the same ethics training and in fact, not only did we all attend the same ethics training, but Mr. [Aaron] Schwartz gave the training publicly in this very classroom. The law is the law, our policy is our policy, we’ve had our ethics training and unfortunately we have to police ourselves. … A board that’s not going to police itself and use its own ethics, that’s just not good and that’s not the expectations that the public has.”
Other than just raising the concern publicly, no other actions were brought forth on the issue.
Outside of the accusations, which came at the meetings close, the board also approved the 2024-25 school budget.
“This is the original budget resolution,” said Superintendent Tim Locklair. “Each quarter we bring changes for you to approve that may happen based on different shifts in the budget or additional funding that we may receive from the state or federal government.”
All together, the budget totals approximately $181 million.
The board also approved a new teleworking policy.
“We do think it would be wise for us as a school district to have a telework policy as most school districts do,’ Locklair said. “This policy will outline and define what telework or remote work is and outline when that can take place. There’s also regulations and procedures that we developed as a team to help administer this. I do believe that this is in the best interest of our district to have a policy that clearly outlines and defines this and administers it.”
The board passed the policy 6-1 with Hensley the lone dissent.
“I am very concerned about the outsourcing of jobs to people who ultimately may not live in Moore County and I know that the superintendent has said that that’s not his intention, but I’m just not willing to vote to give unilateral power to potentially a superintendent down the line where they could start outsourcing jobs to other locations without board approval,” Hensley said.
The Moore County Schools Board of Education will next meet Nov. 12.
