On Thursday, June 18, 2015 the Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA) provided the following message to School Board Members and District Superintendents through their Management Services Newsletter “In light of the new Elections Omnibus bill that was approved by the Legislature, MSBA wants to notify our members who face board vacancies in June that the board appointments need to be made before the end of the month.” Gregg Abbot, Director of Communications for MSBA shared with Superintendent Strassburg that MSBA was under the impression that the new law would be going into effect on August 1, 2015, not July 1st. He stated it is unfortunate that districts with vacancies “now have less than a 30 day notice of the change”.
The School Board also consulted with the district’s attorney, Margaret Skelton of Ratwik, Roszak & Maloney, P.A. – who admittedly was also unaware of the new change to the election law. Both Skelton and MSBA recommended that the Onamia School Board honor the process they outlined to the public at the May School Board meeting, but to make an adjustment to the application deadline by 24 hours and then call a Special Meeting. This change would allow the district to be in compliance with the law so that the new board member would be “seated” by 11:59 PM on June 30. MSBA shared that failure to have a candidate in place by July 1 means that the entire process would need to be “thrown out and the district would have to pay for a special election to fill it”. The district estimates that a special election would cost the district nearly $10,000.
Upon review of the details and recommendations from both the district’s legal counsel and MSBA (including the financial impact of holding a special election), the School Board has made the following changes to the process for filling the vacant School Board seat:1. Applications for individuals interested in filling the vacant seat are now due to the Onamia School District Office by Tuesday, June 30 at 3:00 PM (previously the applications were due July 1st).
2. The School Board will hold a Special Meeting of the School Board on Tuesday, June 30 at 5:00 PM in the Onamia Secondary School Media Center to review applications and make an appointment.
3. All applicants for the vacancy must attend the Special Meeting of the School Board on Tuesday, June 30 at 5:00 PM so that the selected individual can be sworn in and take office immediately.
Contact Shannon Brandt, School Board Secretary, with any questions: 320-532-6702.
Click here to download the application in PDF format
