CMS board creates new compliance office that can investigate senior officials

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board voted Tuesday to create an independent office with the power to monitor compliance with regulations and investigate misconduct allegations against senior employees.

The new Office of Compliance and Transparency will report directly to the board and will not replace or replicate the existing work of other CMS units with oversight duties, such as the ombudsman and finance office. The school board unanimously approved the office, despite concerns from some members

The compliance officer will be the board’s third direct report, outside of the superintendent and the general counsel. Its mandate is to make sure the district remains in compliance with a complex network of regulations from statehouse, federal guidelines, and the board’s own policies.

Board members emphasized the proactive nature of the new office, which is to root out potential conflicts before they become expensive problems for the district. In June, former superintendent Clayton Wilcox faced scrutiny when he admitted to choosing a background check company that did not fingerprint potential hires, which violated board policy. As a result, thousands of employees had to be fingerprinted in a separate process.

“I’m urging you to jump in and take the plunge,” McCray said to her fellow board members after they raised questions about whether the proposed policy was the right decision in its current form. “Because it is sometimes stupid of us, when we pay for a contract, don’t get the services that we need, and then we’ve got to go back and pay out more money (for services) we should have been getting when that contract was put in place. That’s taking away from teaching and learning monies.”

The office will also be tasked with investigating allegations of misconduct against high-ranking district employees, such as the superintendent, general counsel and associate superintendents. Current district policy directs employees to report misconduct such as harassment to senior staff, and ultimately the superintendent, but does not spell out what to do in cases where those senior staff members are the ones being reported.

The leader of the office, a yet-to-be-named chief compliance and transparency officer, would be responsible for conducting periodic audits, presenting quarterly reports to the board, and recommending areas for improvement.

School board member Rhonda Cheek raised budgetary concerns about creating a new position in the middle of a fiscal year, but Superintendent Earnest Winston said it was possible for existing staff members to transition into the compliance officer role, removing the need to seek additional funding.

Board members have debated forming a compliance office since at least September, and some have disagreed over whether forming a standalone compliance office is the right answer.

Margaret Marshall said she was concerned that the compliance office might duplicate existing regulatory work, such as finance audits and alignment with federal programs like Title I. She called on the board to make sure the new office’s work does not overlap with what is already being done in the district and emphasized the preventative work of the role.

“This is a proactive endeavor,” Marshall said. “This is not a gotcha type of activity. The investigative powers of this office are the very last thing on this sheet, and if that’s all that happens, then this is a failure because this office is supposed to be making sure that we do things right.”

Other board members cautioned against rushing into creating a new direct report without a clear mandate of the role. Carol Sawyer, who was the only member of the policy committee to vote against presenting the proposal to the full board, said she was worried about not giving the decision enough deliberation, though she ultimately voted to approve the office.

“Listening to the questions that board members have raised tells me that there isn’t a clear vision of what all this does,” Sawyer said.