Franklin Regional School District is accepting proposals for the position of district solicitor.

Several district residents questioned school director Diana Altieri Hand’s motion the end of the Aug. 1 board meeting to reopen the solicitor’s position. The move was not part of the board’s posted agenda but passed by a 5-4 vote.

Hand was joined by board members Scott Weinman, Traci Eshelman Ramey, Ed Mittereder and Bill Yant in voting to open the position.

Attorney Gary Matta and his firm Dodaro, Matta & Cambest serve as the district’s solicitor. Matta declined to comment.

“The contract is up in August, and I felt it would be prudent to open the position and review other candidates — along with Mr. Matta if he chooses — to represent the board,” Altieri Hand told the Tribune-Review.

Kristy Trautmann of Murrysville, parent of a 10th grader, said the solicitor is hired to represent the school district, not the school board.

“The way the business was conducted suggests that it is not a routine review,” Trautmann said at the board’s Aug. 15 meeting. “It was not on the agenda. It was not added to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, which I presume is what would’ve happened if there was a clerical error or if it had been discussed in executive session.”

District resident Kiersten Maryott agreed.

“Given all the legal jargon in the (Aug. 1) proposal, I’m confident it was not written up between the back-to-back meetings,” Maryott said. “This just feels different, and I really question the process. It seems to be distracting from all the important work the board is doing.”

School director Mark Kozlosky voted in favor of adding Altieri Hand’s motion to the agenda but voted against opening up a request for proposals for the solicitor’s job.

“I don’t have a problem if the board wants to put a (request for proposals) out there,” Kozlosky said. “But there was plenty of time at the committee-of-the-whole meeting to have a discussion about it, and then put it on the Aug. 15 agenda. That was my main impetus for voting no.”

Parent Amy Sheridan agreed.

“Public education is mainly about trust,” she said. “Unannounced board votes tend to catch our attention, because the board’s business is so rarely conducted this way.”

Kozlosky noted the board was in the midst of hiring several administrators at the same time Altieri Hand proposed evaluating several new solicitors.

“We were hiring for some core administrative positions and should be focusing on those things,” Kozlosky said. “I wasn’t aware, let alone the public, that it was going to be done. Why do we have committee meetings if we don’t discuss things like that ahead of time?”

Potential solicitors have until Sept. 1 to submit proposals. Those responses will be provided to the board Sept. 19, when there are both a discussion and a voting meeting. It will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Murrysville municipal building, 4100 Sardis Road.

Meetings are broadcast on Comcast local access Channel 19 and streamed at Murrysville.com. The agenda is available at go.boarddocs.com/pa/frrg/Board.nsf.

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