Some members of the Richmond County School Board say they were shocked to learn that 124th District Representative Henry Howard was floating a proposal to impose term limits on the board.
Earlier this year, the RCBOE filed a request to be given pay raises. The last time the board received a raise was nearly 19 years ago. Board members say that rather than expediting the request, the local legislative delegation instead took up the issue of term limits.
Board member Venis Cain is outspoken on the issue.
“We already have term limits,” Cain said. ”If the public doesn’t like our service to the community, they can vote us out. We ask the delegation to help us and they never do. If they are going to talk about term limits, then they need to look at themselves as well.”
Cain says the school system has struggled through the pandemic, having to basically “throw the switch” to remote learning immediately last year. She says the switch not only necessitated providing laptops and other hardware to students, but also fitting vehicles with WiFi service so that students could access their online accounts.
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The school system also had to scramble to provide lunches off-site to needy children in the system and Cain says legislators did nothing to help in any of those necessary endeavors.
“(The delegation) don’t know anything about our Cyber Learning program,” Cain said. “We asked for help and didn’t see one rusty penny.”
While the rumor mill ramped up that a bill was actually being floated, Representative Howard says no such bill exists at this time.
“What you are referring to is an internal document between myself and other members of the delegation that was leaked to the community,” Howard said. “I wrote the document because I have had requests from members of the community to look into it. We didn’t blindside anyone.”
Howard says the document in question was there to simply facilitate a conversation and never came with a proposal for an actual bill.
“I want to make it clear that we have conversations like this all the time,” Howard said. “We talk on the phone, we text each other and we discuss various proposals like this all the time.
Howard’s comments still do not sit well with Cain who says the delegation should be moving forward to help the school system rather than shifting the discussion to term limits.
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However, not all board members are opposed to term limits. Member A.K. Hassan was first elected to the board in 1982 and served as president until 1986. He returned for a term in 2006 and then returned for his current term that expires in 2022.
Hassan says that the legislative delegation has the power to impose term limits, and he doesn’t feel that the discussion will impact any of the current incumbents.
“What they are talking about is the fairest deal I’ve seen,” Hassan explains. “It is actually fair to the incumbents. They can serve out their current term, run for another and that means they have the possibility to stay in office for as long as 16 years.”
Hassan maintains that term limits can be a good thing as it would introduce fresh blood and ideas to the school board.
Regardless, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. What started as a simple conversation that resulted in a private memo has now been made public, and Howard says that might be a good thing.
“We didn’t intend this thing to go public,” Howard says.” But now that it is out there, maybe it is time for the public to join the conversation. I want to be transparent, and I think we should listen to what the community has to tell us.”
Scott Hudson is the Editorial Page Editor of The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
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