Trip: Yes; Attendance: Hit or miss
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on March 29, 2015 1:50 AM
Dr. Dwight Cannon
District 2 school board representative Dr. Dwight Cannon is continuing his missed-meeting streak, but managed to take advantage of more than $3,000 worth of district funds to attend the National School Boards Association conference last weekend in Nashville.
The annual meeting started out with a pre-conference on Friday followed by conferences and other events Saturday through Monday.
Cannon's spotty attendance record for school board and committee meetings started after he became pastor at a church in Burlington, N.J., and then listed his residence status on Facebook as Burlington.
Late last month, he maintained that he owns the Dudley home that was previously owned by one of his predecessors in the District 2 seat, Shirley Sims. He also said he had gone through the proper legal channels to ensure he was in compliance to keep his status on the board.
Then he did not show up for the March 2 meeting of the school board, due to a travel delay when attempting to return by train from New Jersey earlier that day.
At a called meeting held March 16, for the purpose of discussing selection of a new schools superintendent, Cannon was not physically present but did Skype in for a portion of the three-hour meeting, sources said.
From January 2014 to date, he has only been physically present for about 59 percent of the meetings.
Skype, FaceTime and conference calls have increasingly grown as Cannon's method of participation since taking over as pastor at the New Jersey church.
When he was elected to the board in November 2012, he was pastor at Greater St. James AME Zion Church in Goldsboro. He had served there for seven years before accepting the pastorate at Wesley AME Zion Church in New Jersey.
In addition to juggling duties at both places, he is currently campaigning for Global Mission 2016, a four-year position with the denomination. The new job will involve traveling to 19 countries and 28 overseas conferences.
Election for the paid position will be August 2016.
He said last month that if he is chosen for the Global Mission job, he will no longer be pastor.
He did not indicate how the new position, based in Charlotte, would impact the remainder of his term with the Board of Education, which runs until November 2016.
The News-Argus also learned recently that Cannon has yet another source of income above and beyond the $1,100 monthly stipend he collects as a member of the Board of Education.
The newspaper was notified by a church member with concerns about Cannon's dual residency status, as well as posts Cannon had made on social media, that he is substitute teaching in the New Jersey community where he spends the bulk of each week.
Calls to several school districts in that region did not produce results, with the exception of one.
Officials at Burlington Public Schools said the district works through an agency. Source 4 Teachers, which hires and assigns substitute teachers for that district, confirmed that Cannon's name was on its list of substitute teachers.
Despite his inability to attend meetings of the Wayne County Board of Education, Cannon cleared his calendar March 20-23 to be at the National School Boards Association meeting. District 6 representative Rick Pridgen, who has previously attended the annual conference, also went this year.
According to the office of Wayne County Public Schools' finance officer Beverly Boltinhouse, the district does not have a travel or conference budget. Funds used for travel, conferences, local meetings, registrations and required board classes come out of a local funding allotment by the board of commissioners.
The amount of funds used each year is based on the number of conferences and required classes board members attend, she said.
For comparison purposes, Mrs. Boltinhouse provided budgets for the past two years.
In 2012-13, the allotment for travel and conferences was $25,000, with $19,142 used. In 2013-14, $25,000 was again allotted, with expenditures totaling $29,886.
For the 2014-15 year, the allotment was increased to $27,000. To date, $26,926 has been used.
The expense breakdown for the Nashville trip included four components, she said.
The hotel accommodations were $1,005.76 each for Cannon and Pridgen. Meal allotments, based on the out of state rate, were $260 for each of them.
Since both used their personal vehicles for travel, Mrs. Boltinhouse said, each was reimbursed at an estimated rate of $700.
Registration for the four-day event was $725 for Pridgen and $1,065 for Cannon, who chose to take two additional classes.