School Board’s Furry Defends No-Bid Contract for New Attorney as Ruddy and Ramirez Raise Questions

Janie Ruddy and Lauren Ramirez are discovering that the Flagler County School Board to which they were just elected is its own peculiar governing creature, unlike any local government when it comes to transparency and certain procedures. Exhibit A: its attorney hires.

The night they were sworn in, both new members voted to ratify the contract for the board’s permanent new legal counsel, if with some reserve that they had expressed at an earlier workshop, for not feeling like they had vetted one of the most important matters any elected official will face. The previous board had vetted it all, they were told, disingenuously.




In fact, only two sitting board members had done so: Will Furry, the chair, and Christy Chong. A third member, Sally Hunt, had resigned and was that night replaced by Derek Barrs, appointed by the governor. The terms of two other board members had ended. They were replaced by Ruddy and Ramirez. Elected panels like the school board get to hire only two persons: their chief executive (the superintendent) and their legal counsel. The new board members were voting on one of those two important hires without having had more than a cursory role in the choice.

This afternoon, Ruddy and Ramirez raised questions. Both raised questions about the fees to be paid the attorney. Both raised questions about why the district was splitting its representation between a board attorney and a separate staff attorney, given the additional costs. Ruddy wondered how at a time when “every day we’re hearing about doing more with less money,” the board was seemingly not heeding that caution. Ruddy wondered whether the choices were vetted, and if there was, who did the vetting–and whether there even was a bid.

There wasn’t.

“For school boards, we don’t need to put out a request for proposal for attorneys, right?” Furry said. “It’s not a a bidding type of thing. We get to choose the legal counsel that we feel best at any given time.” He did not say that he got to choose David Delaney, the attorney with Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman, the firm he chose a year ago after the board had tasked him with vetting an interim firm, after the firing of long-time Board Attorney Christy Gavin that he, Chong and Hunt had orchestrated.




The understanding of the board at the time was that it would conduct a search for a new attorney. It issued a request for qualifications. Two firms responded–GrayRobinson of Tallahassee and The Douglas Law Firm of St. Augustine. The board was divided. The matter went no further. Delaney was eventually slid into the permanent post with a contract, at $310 an hour for his firm’s partners, like Delaney, $235 for associates, and $115 for paralegal work.

Ruddy and Ramirez were concerned about the cost–not because of the hourly rates, but because it would be in addition to the cost of what will be a full-time, in-house counsel for the district staff, the way Gavin had been. Superintendent LaShakia Moore is still searching for that representation.

“When we did put out for a bid, the numbers there were even higher than some of the ones you mentioned right now,” Furry said. But it had never been clear at the time whether the bid was for a single firm to represent the board and the district staff, or just the board. Stressing that no bid was necessary, Furry added: “Fortunately, what I would say is that for the board’s benefit, we don’t have to do that unless we want to do that.”

No local government has hired its legal counsel without public bids, public meetings and public vetting.




Nor were Ruddy, Ramirez and Barrs part of the decision that ceded to the superintendent the authority to hire additional legal representation for staff work, though that’s less controversial in that a staff attorney would be much like any other director that Moore would hire. Those are exclusively administrative decisions that are only ratified in a pro forma way by the board, the way all hires are. The board does not get to dictate the choice to the superintendent.

Furry said “it was the view of the previous board to go in this direction.”

It was more complicated than that. First, two board members at the time opposed ending the arrangement with Gavin, the former attorney, regardless. They found Gavin to be an effective attorney who, especially for the price, was providing necessary services both as what a staff attorney would do and as what a board attorney would do. Three board members disagreed: Furry, Chong, and the now-departed Hunt. They did not like Gavin, did not trust her and did not want her around in any capacity, because she tended to block their maneuverings and at times inappropriate meddling in administrative matters.

They fired her in a 3-2 vote and hired Delaney on an interim basis, just for board meetings. Moore was left on her own to figure out how to pick up where Gavin left off. The firm of Sniffen & Spelman had been on retainer. That firm’s role was expanded–for $200 an hour–to cover Gavin’s work, albeit with none of Gavin’s nearly two decades of institutional history and familiarity with every legal issue. Meanwhile, Moore looked to fill the staff attorney, or in-house attorney, position. She understandably has had a rough time of it. For that kind of pay, and the board’s history of instability and unpredictably meddling or aggressive actions, the best candidates would inevitably steer clear.




“At first, we weren’t getting necessarily many applicants,” Moore said of that hire today. “In the last couple weeks, we have gotten some applicants. And we have two candidates for consideration that actually are prepared to make a decision.”

Still, the bifurcation of roles was a concern for two of the new board members. The two attorneys would have different tasks, and answer to different people. Gavin had taken care of all previous services, though the district also had a contract for yet more representation on top of Delaney and the Spelman firm for such things as collective bargaining negotiations and labor issues.

“I’m concerned about that level of expense and that dual representation understanding, why and do we need that? And is that the model we’re going forward with?” Ruddy asked. She was not necessarily being critical of the choice, but she had not heard answers to her questions until now. Nor was she provided numbers that could enlighten the matter. Collen Conklin, the board member who had filled her seat previously, had asked in January 2023 for regular financial reports showing legal expenses in total. Those reports were occasionally produced to show expenses in segments, but none was produced to show, say, the cumulative cost between last January and November.

“So when we look at our attorney cost as a whole, you will see an increase. But the increase isn’t just because we have two firms. The increase is really a combination of things,” Moore said.

Furry claimed having the same attorney represent the board and the district was a conflict of interest. Numerous boards across the state don’t think so, nor was Gavin’s tenure ever the subject of conflict-of-interest issues–until the Furry trio orchestrated its campaign to fire her. Furry was on stronger ground when he said that the needs of the board and the needs of the district are different, and would have been on the strongest ground had he made the argument that even Gavin would have agreed with: one attorney for the district’s entire legal needs was not enough. Gavin was overworked. Her replacement will not be less so.




Ruddy asked how many districts have the dual model Flagler County is adopting. She did not get a precise answer. Delaney estimated that half the districts–the smaller ones–employ contracted rather than in-house employees. What he did not say is that the majority of those also do not have staff attorneys.

Barrs conducted his own informal investigation. “The board members that I’ve spoke to feel like that they don’t get the representation that they feel like they need to get” when they have only one attorney for the district and the board, Barrs said. “They feel that it’s whatever the superintendent wants, is not collectively looking at the totality of this particular body.” He was comfortable with the new arrangement.

“It oftentimes comes down that you get what you pay for,” Furry said, “and now with Weiss and Serota, we now have a board certified attorney on the board side, and this allows us to have that.”

“My questioning is no reflection on Weiss and Serota or Mr. Delaney,” Ruddy said. “It’s the fact that we have some struggles with enrollment. We have struggles in where we’re going to have money. And so it’s in my nature to go, well, there are luxury items, things that are always nice to have more of, or pay more of, or have the top of the line. But what is critical, right? That’s just the perspective that I’m taking.”

The separation of the two roles and the new arrangement is critical to Furry.