The Wrangell School Board held a special meeting Monday, Aug. 24, to discuss recent travel and purchases made by the superintendent and school staff. Last week, Superintendent Debbe Lancaster and three other members of the school district traveled to Juneau for a shopping trip. This was to acquire some key items related to reopening the schools and COVID-19 mitigation, she said. There were several reasons this was a topic of discussion for the board, among them being a lack of communication with the board, potential liability issues, and questions of the necessity of the trip at all.
The shopping trip was last minute, Lancaster said, explaining a timeline of the trip. The previous week, during an administration meeting, she had asked department heads to look at their supplies and staff needs for the upcoming reopening of schools. It became clear, she said, that some "key items" were missing. She said some of the purchases included face shields, face masks, backpack sprayers, hand sanitizer, gloves, a safe, a garden shed, treats for "welcome back" packets, a cordless drill, food packaging supplies, air filters, and air filter batteries. In a text message to the Sentinel, she added that more details would be available at a borough assembly meeting on Aug. 25.
Lancaster decided that she and three other staff members would go to Juneau to purchase these key items. The decision was made shortly before the trip even began, as they were in a hurry to procure these supplies ahead of the new year. She said, after the meeting, that she could not provide the names of the staff who accompanied her. There were no flights in that time frame to Juneau, she said, so alternate plans were made involving local transportation Sunrise Aviation and the Rainforest Islander ferry.
"A staff member found a charter flight that would be able to fly to Juneau on Thursday ... and all the shopping could be done, put into a U-Haul, and then put onto the ferry Thursday night, and then leave Juneau harbor at 6 a.m. the next morning, and then spend 15 hours getting back to Wrangell," Lancaster said.
The entire cost of the trip, Lancaster said, was $5,788. Of that, she said about $1,332 was earmarked as CARES Act money. This would potentially come out of a $250,000 grant the City and Borough of Wrangell approved for the school district, for COVID-19 mitigation. However, the borough assembly planned to discuss potentially rescinding this funding in a meeting on Aug. 25.
Lancaster provided a spreadsheet of where the money was spent to the Sentinel on Aug. 25. Over $2,000 was spent at Costco, and an additional $1,215.58 was spent at Home Depot. Other expenses listed include $738.75 to Sunrise Aviation, $88.65 for a U-Haul, and $450 for passage on the Rainforest Islander ferry. The spreadsheet excludes her own travel expenses, she said.
"I am paying my own expenses since the board declined to approve professional leave," she wrote in an email. "Originally, I offered to take vacation days and pay my own way. But Aaron [Angerman] wanted to have the board vote."
Several board members expressed concern about this trip. For one thing, several members said, they were unhappy with Lancaster taking several staff members out of town shortly before the new school year, and potentially exposing them to COVID-19 during their travel. Another issue brought up was that the superintendent did not have authorization for this trip from the school board, and that bringing staff members broke their moratorium on not letting school employees travel during the pandemic.
"I was not aware that travel ban had been lifted," Board Member David Wilson said. "When did that happen?"
"That's definitely a fair enough question," Lancaster responded. "The ban was not officially lifted because, quite frankly, it was forgotten about."
A common theme amongst the board's concerns, as well, was the lack of communication. The superintendent is required to receive authorization to travel from the board, it was pointed out, and this did not happen for this trip. Wilson added that this whole situation had hurt the trust between the school district and the wider community. It does not take much to stir up a lot of drama, he said, and this was one such situation. Furthermore, Board Member Patty Gilbert pointed out some liability concerns in that no acting superintendent had been appointed in Lancaster's absence. Gilbert also added she really wanted the district to make the individual expenses for this trip public.
"I get it, it was chaotic, but I feel we all were taken aback on all sides here," Board Member Jeanie Arnold said. "I do appreciate what was done by the staff and by you, but just the way it was executed definitely has all the questions that have been presented tonight."
Another major concern for the board was that these supplies were procured in Juneau, and not in Wrangell. Several board members wanted to know why items were not purchased locally, or why the district had not contacted the EOC to see about getting more COVID-19 supplies. Gilbert also pointed out that Wrangell's business community was really hurting during the pandemic right now, and that new money flowing through the local economy is needed.
At the end of the meeting, the school board voted "no" on a motion to approve professional leave and travel expenses for Lancaster, for this Juneau trip. Gilbert also raised a motion to amend school district purchasing procedures to include a clause on preferring to make purchases locally. This item was approved, to be considered by the policy committee. The board also approved a motion for the superintendent to write an open letter to the businesses and charities of Wrangell, stating regret about this event and assurances that things will be different moving forward.
"If $5,788 is the total expense we're talking about, a tenth of one percent of our entire budget, I think it's less of a budget issue and more of a communication issue and travel issue," Board President Aaron Angerman said. "I think in the grand scheme of things, we're going to have bigger fish to fry as this goes forward."
Lancaster shared her letter of apology with the Sentinel on the afternoon of Aug. 25 which can be read on page 4.
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