Iowa school board group ousts president-elect

The Iowa Association of School Boards ousted its president-elect in an unusual vote for reasons that board members refused to explain other than to say they felt she wasn't capable of the leadership role.

The board didn't publicly discuss the matter before it voted 11-2 to oust Lee Ann Grimley during a Thursday meeting.

Grimley, who had served on the board for eight years and was slated to become its president in 2012, read a lengthy statement just before the vote in which she addressed her fellow board members, saying she hadn't been told why she was the only board member to be removed from IASB office since 1949.

She decried what she called the "stealthy" way she was being dismissed and said the board had deprived her of the chance to defend herself against "backroom gossip."

"We don't make ourselves stronger lying about what we are," Grimley said.

Russ Wiesley, the current board president, said board members were not ready to discuss the reasons for deposing Grimley, though he later issued a statement saying that Grimley could not meet the association's need for leadership.

Wiesley did not immediately respond to a Friday phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Grimley told the Des Moines Register that she had learned late Wednesday that four board members had vowed to resign if she wasn't removed from office.

Grimley speculated she was ousted partly because of the association's support of an Iowa Senate bill that would make other privately run school-supported organizations subject to the open-meetings law. Those include the for-profit company Iowa School Finance Information Services, a potential competitor of IASB.

IASB's lobbyist has officially declared the association to be "undecided" on the merits of the bill. But Grimley opposed it, saying it would help IASB compete with other organizations but create additional costs for Iowa school districts.

That apparently put Grimley at odds with her colleagues.

The Association of School Boards receives government grants and collects annual dues from all 361 school districts in Iowa. The dues range from about $700 to $10,000, depending on the district's student enrollment. In return, school board members receive guidance on finances, open-meetings law compliance, legal matters, board governance and other issues.

The nonprofit association was investigated by the FBI and state agencies last year after The Des Moines Register published a series of reports about executive compensation and the alleged misuse of public money by former IASB Chief Financial Officer Kevin Schick.

Executive Director Maxine Kilcrease was subsequently fired for allegedly lying to the board, violating IASB's ethics policies and raising her pay to $367,000 without board approval.

State legislators last year made IASB - which is supported by millions of dollars from Iowa public school districts - subject to Iowa's open-meetings law and open-records law last year because of its financial turmoil.

"It's pretty obvious they've got a lot of internal problems. It's a perfect example of the problems you have when you don't have an open and transparent board," Iowa Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, said Friday.