GARY — The courts and the Indiana Public Access Counselor are being asked to weigh in on how transparent the reconstruction of the Gary Community School Corp. must be.
Gary attorney Clorius Lay filed suit in Crown Point Tuesday after filing a complaint last week with Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke H. Britt, alleging the state is violating its own open door law in its dealings with Gary schools.
Lay is suing the state and the private, for-profit company now running Gary schools as well as the Gary School Board. He is asking the courts enjoin the state to hold more public meetings with the Gary School Board and city residents to explain what measures will be taken to improve the school district.
The General Assembly approved the creation of the emergency manager in April and authorized the Indiana Distressed Unit Advisory Board to hire Florida-based MGT Education Consulting Group and its subsidiary, Gary Schools Recovery LLC, and Peggy Hinckley, the Gary schools' new emergency manager.
The state takeover of Gary schools has raised some hackles. State Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Merrillville, has said he wants Gary residents to have more say in decisions made by the state-appointed emergency manager.
Lay complains Hinckley is willing to meet with individual Gary School Board members, but limits her meetings with the full school board in what appears to him as an effort to divide the community's voice over the future management of city schools.
He said he is suing the school board to enjoin board members from setting up separate meetings with the emergency manager, which he said violates the open door law.
Gary School Board President Rosie Washington said Tuesday, "I have gone round and round with DUAB and state officials to ascertain why we cannot get together other than the one meeting (per month) the law says we can. I do believe in speaking with one voice. The emergency manager said she wanted to meet with us one on one."
Jenny Banks, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance and DUAB, didn't provide a comment early Tuesday afternoon.
No court date has been set for Lay's suit.
Britt, who was in Crown Point Tuesday taking part in a symposium on open access to local government, said he received Lay's complaint and is still formulating an opinion on the issue.
Gary school finances have deteriorated in recent years due to a combination of declining student enrollment, charter school competition, low property tax collection rates and legislative reductions to Indiana's school funding formula.
The district is more than $100 million in debt, has had difficulty making payroll, and Hinckley told the state last month its finances were in disarray.
The new law gives Hinckley near-total authority to implement academic and financial changes, renegotiate contracts and run Gary's schools as she sees fit, subject only to informal review by a local advisory board and DUAB oversight.
The law gives elected trustees of the Gary Community School Corp. and the district's superintendent no official say in decisions made by the emergency manager.