Beaufort Co. school board votes to keep complaints against member private
In a move that many hoped would “put an end” to eight months of talking around a sticky issue, the Beaufort County school board has voted to keep four employee complaints filed against secretary William Smith private, even from its members.
But during Tuesday’s vote, the public learned details — the nature of the complaints, how they were filed, and who had viewed them — that have been kept secret since the board learned about the complaints in June.
The grievances were not over illegal or sexual behavior, board members said after being briefed in “general detail,” but simply “a misunderstanding.”
The public still does not know what triggered the four employee complaints against Smith — at least three of which were filed within eight days of each other, district emails show — what the employees alleged and what drove then-superintendent Herb Berg to order a concealed weapon permit check on Smith.
Also unknown: what the board did in August to resolve the complaints in a closed meeting with their attorney, or whether Smith was disciplined as a result of the complaints. He has kept his position as the board’s secretary, and as a member of the operations committee.
Board chairwoman Christina Gwozdz said Tuesday she received the complaints from then-superintendent Herb Berg when they were filed, read them and passed them on to the board’s lawyer. She “didn’t show them to a soul,” she said.
Smith, who represents Beaufort and St. Helena, said Tuesday he has also seen the complaints and they “weren’t as bad as they were made out to be.
“I don’t have a problem with everyone on board seeing the grievances,” he said. “Because I have nothing to hide, and I want to be totally transparent about it.”
‘Nothing more than a misunderstanding’
Other board members did not say whether they had seen the complaints, but Burton representative Richard Geier said the board’s briefing in executive session assured them, “It was nothing more than a misunderstanding, period.”
“She would have had to tell us if there was sexual harassment or physical or something bad that happened, and it wasn’t,” Geier said.
Board members Cathy Robine and Tricia Fidrych both said the complaints didn’t involve anything illegal or sexual.
Hilton Head board member JoAnn Orischak, who previously emailed district staff and board officers requesting to see the complaints, initiated the vote to give the board access to the complaints. It failed, 3-7-1. Smith, Orischak and Okatie representative John Dowling voted for access; Bluffton representative Rachel Wisnefski abstained.
Lobeco/Gray’s Hill representative Earl Campbell said the board was wasting time “talking about something we cannot do anything about” by continuing to discuss the complaints.
“I think we should put an end to this. If it was me,” Campbell said, referring to Smith, “I would be talking to an attorney to sue somebody.”
During debate of the motion, several board members said they believed keeping the complaints private would protect the employees who filed them.
“We have employees that need to trust us,” Robine said Tuesday. “We said we want to retain employees? We’ve got to protect them.”
‘Out of order and criminal’
Smith is the only board member explicitly cleared to discuss the complaints with the public, according to a letter from attorney White that Gwozdz read aloud at the board’s Feb. 4 meeting.
Smith declined Thursday to answer questions about the nature of the grievances.
“When I say something that can possibly get me sued, will the Beaufort Gazette pay for it?” Smith asked.
Asked what would get him sued, Smith said he’d “been told there are boundaries” around him speaking. Asked who told him that, Smith hung up.
Smith said last week that district employees should have filed their complaints against him with South Carolina’s State Ethics Commission instead of the district.
“You know why they didn’t go through the State Ethics Commission?” he asked. “Once you grieve someone and there’s no merit to it, then you possibly might have to pay any law fees or any fees that they’ve taken out of their own pocket.”
Both White’s firm and David Grissom, the district’s chief security officer, ran background checks on Smith without his knowledge before the complaints were resolved, which Smith called “out of order and criminal” at Tuesday’s meeting.
A private investigator contracted by White’s firm ran a background check on Smith during their investigation, which cost the district upwards of $16,000.
In June, then-superintendent Berg asked David Grissom, the district’s chief security officer, to check if Smith had a concealed weapon permit.
In an email to Gwozdz, Berg said Grissom had not found a permit for Smith, though Smith said in an interview with the Packet and the Gazette that he has had a concealed weapon permit for several years.
According to state law, Grissom should not have been able to confirm that Smith had or didn’t have a permit, as he is not a law enforcement officer.