By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The St. Louis Board of Education on Tuesday reappointed Marlene Davis to the district's retirement board.
Davis, a former school board president, was set to complete her term at the end of the month. Her reappointment drew criticism from school board member Amy Hilgemann, who questioned Davis' sense of financial responsibility. But board member Rochelle Moore defended Davis' record.
"She served well on that committee and represented the constituents that she's supposed to represent and protected their interests, so let her continue on to do her job," Moore said.
The retirement board has been a lightning rod for controversy in recent weeks. Last month the school board appointed fellow member Vince Schoemehl as a retirement board trustee. Some district employees claim it was an unjust removal of trustee John Mahoney, whose term runs until 2006.
Hilgemann, though, questioned Davis' ethics, claiming that as a school board member, Davis never paid back a more than five-thousand dollar travel advance, and kept an authorized cell phone.
"So it didn't become public record that she actually had a cell phone in the amount of four or five hundred dollars a month. Those kinds of behaviors do not represent the kind of person that I think we need on a totally fiscally responsible board."
Davis herself was not present at the meeting.
The school board also elected Hilgemann to replace Vince Schoemehl as its secretary.