DES MOINES (SPECIAL) – The Iowa Association of School Boards’ Board of Directors voted unanimously Thursday to terminate the employment of executive director Maxine Kilcrease. The board had previously placed Kilcrease on administrative leave as of March 11, 2010, in the midst of several investigations. Kilcrease started working at IASB on July 1, 2009.

“We believe this is in the best interest of the association,” said board president Russ Wiesley, who also serves on the local Waukee school board. “As a board, we feel we were misled and blocked from information, and it has caused a huge amount of distress for this critical Iowa organization that we care so deeply about. We are now going to put this thing behind us, turn the page, and get on with the business of serving schools and students. IASB exists for a reason, and as our members have told us, they need the quality training and services we provide. We thank them for their patience as we’ve been working through this.”

The regular 2009 audit is still underway and expected to be complete in May. But preliminary reports from auditing firm Brooks Lodden and IASB’s financial advisors, LWBJ Financial, indicate that recent problems had more to do with management than with finances, contrary to what IASB members have been told over the past several months. In addition, a working, preliminary budget for FY 2011 shared with the Board on Thursday shows that the cash flow situation of the association is not the dire situation publicly described by the former executive director.

The board named several reasons for terminating Kilcrease. They included:

* Kilcrease’s decision to request and accept a salary increase of over $100,000 without Board approval.

* Kilcrease’s decision to provide significant raises to a few employees during the same time that other employees were being terminated for financial reasons.

* Kilcrease prevented Brooks Lodden, IASB’s auditing firm for the past five years, from providing information necessary for the Board to carry out its fiduciary duties, going so far as to direct an attorney to threaten Brooks Lodden if they attempted to communicate with the Board.

* Kilcrease violated IASB Board policy by failing to utilize competitive bidding for projects where expenditures were over $10,000, and failing to obtain Board approval for projects with expenditures over $75,000.

* Kilcrease has refused to cooperate with an investigation into allegations of impropriety in the operation of IASB. She also has not voluntarily testified before the State of Iowa Legislative Oversight Committee.

* Kilcrease’s activities and decisions have caused damage to IASB’s reputation. In addition to causing investigation by the State of Iowa Legislative Oversight Committee, IASB has been in touch with several other entities, including the Polk County Attorney’s Office working with the Des Moines Police Department, the State of Iowa Attorney General’s Office, the State Department of Education, the Federal Department of Education, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Senator Tom Harkin’s Office and the Internal Revenue Service.

Wiesley said he wanted to acknowledge one Board member in particular because as board members’ concerns increased, she led the way in getting information. Lee Ann Grimley, IASB president-elect and a Springville school board member, said that during a Feb. 26 meeting in which Kilcrease met with the Board’s executive committee to recommend severe staffing cuts due to budget constraints, Kilcrease seemed defensive when asked about salaries. Wiesley instructed Kilcrease to wait on staff cuts until the Board had a clearer picture of the finances. Against Kilcrease’s instructions, Grimley on March 2 communicated with Brooks Lodden, the auditing firm, and verified there had been a large increase in Kilcrease’s salary that had not been approved by the entire board.

“While a board’s authority comes from working as a whole, Lee Ann’s leadership in gathering information on behalf of the board helped us in our ability to determine next steps,” Wiesley said. “The media soon had the story, as well, and although this has been an extremely challenging time, we look forward to moving on. We have learned a lot, and are using this opportunity to reinforce internal policies and controls and I assure you that this board will be more demanding of our management and more stringent in the future, while at the same time trying to encourage our excellent staff to develop leadership capacity and continue their good work with school leaders. We also want to reiterate that we are reviewing all of our business services to ensure they are all operating effectively and in line with our mission, and so far, we have found that they are. Every one of them is secure.”

A Board subcommittee will immediately begin searching for interim executive and financial officers. They hope to interview candidates in mid- to late April.

In other business Thursday, the Board voted to move forward with member outreach efforts. They will schedule newly revamped District Meetings in June and will move ahead with planning for the annual convention in November; staff will also seek feedback from members in order to repair trust and serve schools best. In addition, the Board voted to send out dividends from the insurance program within the next two weeks, to reassure schools that programs are operating as they should. They also voted to decrease dues by 5 percent, recognizing that they must be cognizant of the association’s financial situation but also trying to ease the pain that schools are feeling from the 10 percent across-the-board cut announced by the Governor last fall.

IASB is a private, nonprofit organization representing Iowa’s 361 school districts, 10 area education agencies and 15 community colleges.

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