AUGUSTA — The committee reviewing allegations that Gov. Paul LePage overstepped his authority when he threatened to pull a private school’s state funding for hiring Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves has requested interviews with the state’s acting education chief and two other members of the governor’s administration.
It’s unclear, however, whether any of the three will show up when the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee meets Oct. 15.
The requests follow a detailed Sept. 8 report by the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability on the sequence of events before and after Good Will-Hinckley’s decision to rescind an offer to make Eves its next president.
The 25-page report from OPEGA, the Legislature’s watchdog agency, included interviews with acting Department of Education Commissioner Tom Desjardin, who acknowledged that he ordered his finance staff to withhold funds for Good Will-Hinckley after LePage expressed opposition to hiring Eves during a June 9 “venting session” with senior staff and Cabinet members.
The Fairfield school operates several programs, including the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, a charter school. LePage has said he opposed the hire because the House speaker has a history of political opposition to charter schools.
The oversight committee, which directs OPEGA, also has asked Aaron Chadbourne, one of LePage’s senior policy advisers, and Cynthia Montgomery, the governor’s chief legal counsel, to appear Oct. 15. Jack Moore, chairman of the Good Will-Hinckley board of directors, also has been asked to attend.
The requests were sent to the four individuals Sept. 15. Although OPEGA’s report has been called a fact-finding inquiry and makes no conclusions about wrongdoing, the oversight committee could use it as the basis for a more formal investigation.
The Oct. 15 meeting is expected to focus on a few loose threads in the controversy, including the order by Desjardin to withhold the first quarterly payment to the organization. According to the report, Education Department staff gave varying accounts of how the order materialized.
Committee members also raised questions about meetings between Desjardin and Moore, the school’s chairman, before Good Will-Hinckley announcing it had hired Eves.
The report found that Desjardin and Moore met privately May 22, after the organization’s board had voted unanimously to hire Eves. LePage’s efforts to convince the school to reverse its decision began after Desjardin and Moore met, the report said, prompting one committee member to ask why Moore told Desjardin about the school’s private hiring decision before it was announced.
Moore has acknowledged that he received a handwritten note from LePage in early June. It’s unclear whether the note details an explicit threat. Moore told OPEGA the note had been discarded, but he said it included a passage that said, “I would have trouble supporting Good Will-Hinckley if you hire such a hack.”
Committee members also said they wanted to discuss some inconsistencies in Desjardin’s comments to OPEGA. Chadbourne’s role in the controversy is outlined in the report, and he is believed to have been part of the governor’s lobbying effort to force Good Will-Hinckley to rescind its contract with Eves.
Montgomery, meanwhile, is believed to have had discussions with Eves’ attorney, David Webbert, before the organization’s decision to rescind the job offer. Webbert, who is pursuing a civil case against LePage on Eves’ behalf, has said he and Montgomery discussed the handwritten note and the governor’s threat to pull funding. Montgomery also may have been consulted about the legality of the governor’s decision to withhold the funding.
It’s unknown whether members of the LePage administration will attend the Oct. 15 meeting. OPEGA noted that several senior staff members, including Chadbourne, declined to participate in its fact-finding probe because of a civil lawsuit Eves has filed against the governor. While Desjardin cooperated with OPEGA, he’s believed to be recovering from a broken back.
An OPEGA staff member said she was uncertain whether any of those asked to attend had replied in writing.
The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
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