Las Cruces school board will not probe executive salaries cited in parent's complaint

LAS CRUCES − A week ahead of the 2022-23 school year, the Las Cruces Public Schools Board of Education held a special meeting to consider a complaint submitted by a district parent requesting a formal investigation into compensation for two executive staff members.

After discussing the complaint for nearly two hours in closed session Tuesday night, the school board decided it did not have jurisdiction and would not take further action. All members were present, with Carol Cooper participating by telephone.

Bloomfield, a public critic of the administration, alleged that Superintendent Ralph Ramos did not follow district policy in setting the salaries of two administrators who have served as chief of staff: Sean Barham, who currently heads the district's human resources department, and Tim Hand, who recently left the district.

Bloomfield had also asked school board President Ray Jaramillo to recuse himself from the matter because he had responded to a social media post she had written in June, when she first submitted her complaint. Jaramillo had sent her a text message pointing out a minor factual error in her post that was not part of the complaint itself. As he had not weighed in on the merits of the complaint, Jaramillo said he saw no grounds to disqualify himself from the discussion and would not recuse.

Bloomfield alleged that Ramos allowed Barham to move from the chief of staff position in 2021 to a lower-ranking administrative job without a reduction in pay. She argued that the decision should have been run by the school board, citing a district policy regarding salary adjustments and increases for top administrators.

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She also questioned the $141,212 salary paid to Hand, who returned to the district last year after serving as a deputy secretary of the state Public Education Department. His pay was prorated because he returned to LCPS after the contract year had begun.

After reviewing the complaint in executive session, the board resumed its public meeting long enough to announce it would deliver its decision to Bloomfield directly and made no further announcement.

Jaramillo told the Las Cruces Sun-News that while the final decision is public, the board would not discuss personnel details in open session. Bloomfield shared the five-page decision with the Sun-News and published it on Facebook.

In its memorandum of decision, the board wrote that how Ramos allocated pay "is clearly outside the Board's contracting authority" as well as its budgetary authority. The board hires, supervises and sets pay for the superintendent alone.

The board cited the 2021 suspension of the Los Lunas Board of Education by the New Mexico Public Education Department, a case in which, alongside potential violations of procurement code and the Governmental Conduct Act, the school board took direct actions pertaining to personnel matters involving employees beneath the superintendent.

The Los Lunas precedent, the board wrote, prohibits the body "from engaging in any conduct, directly or indirectly through an investigator, that falls within the exclusive statutory authority of the Superintendent, absent specific evidence of any unlawful use of such authority."

While denying Bloomfield's request for an investigation, the board agreed to review two school district policies Bloomfield cited: Policy CBC, which delineates the superintendent's powers and responsibility; and policy GBC, addressing salary schedules and deviations of pay from schedules approved by the superintendent.

Bloomfield posted the decision on a Facebook page she maintains titled "Families Advocating for Change in Education," which she started in 2021 as a platform advocating for resuming in-person instruction after months of remote learning in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Reacting to the memorandum, Bloomfield wrote: "This decision essentially communicates to the world that our superintendent can hire, fire, raise, promote, demote, bribe or pay off any employee in the district without any interference from the board."

Ramos, who has served as superintendent since 2021, did not attend Tuesday's special meeting.

The chief of staff position is currently open and in the process of being filled, district spokesperson Kelly Jameson said.

Under the balanced calendar adopted by the school board in March, the 2022-23 school year will begin for kindergarten, sixth and ninth grades on July 20, and for all other students on July 21.

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Las Cruces school board will review policies but not probe salaries