Early this year, CMS’ school board shuffled its staff. Did the changes contribute to its current mess?

This story first appeared in WFAE Education Reporter James Farrell's weekly newsletter. Sign up here to get newsletters from WFAE straight to your inbox.

At the now-infamous Sept. 22 Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board meeting, as the board voted to fire Superintendent Crystal Hill, board member Cynthia Stone said she believed the board was “creating our own problems.”

“I think our board’s overall effectiveness has been seriously impacted by many organizational changes that were made back in January and February,” Stone said. “And I voted in favor of these changes — and I’m talking about the board staff — with the understanding that board leadership has built a clear path forward with this. That has not proved to be the case. We have a weakened and collapsing board structure, and that’s very frightening.”

Indeed, in the months leading up to Hill's suspension, reinstatement, memo of allegations against the board and ultimate firing, the board made a flurry of organizational changes that, at the time, seemed like minor bureaucratic maneuvers.

But taken together, in the context of multiple investigations into alleged financial irregularities, they raise new questions about whether the removal of oversight staff contributed to one of the most turbulent times in CMS history. Those times, as WFAE and others reported Monday, now include an investigation by federal authorities in addition to ongoing probes by state agencies.

Here’s what we know: In January, General Counsel Andre Mayes retired — but took home nearly $300,000 in a separation agreement, raising questions about the nature of her departure. The board is also short a clerk after its last one moved into a different position.

As WFAE previously reported, the board dissolved its Office of Compliance and Ethics in March. This office was created in 2019 to handle district compliance issues and reported to the board, not CMS administrators. Now-Chair Dee Rankin told me at the time the board, months before, had eliminated the chief compliance officer position in a board restructuring. The March policy change just formally dissolved the office. Rankin said the board made the change to improve efficiency and that compliance would fall to the Office of General Counsel, which has lacked a permanent head since January.

Heading into 2026, the board had three employees who reported directly to them: the general counsel, the superintendent and the chief compliance officer. That’s not uncommon in board governance. But with the firing of Hill, the general counsel and superintendent positions are now filled by temporary staffers. The chief compliance officer no longer exists.

It gets more confusing. In June, the board created a new “Office of Compliance, Legal and Advocacy.” This office was to be led by the “Chief Legal, Compliance and Advocacy Officer,” a new position that would report directly to the board. An April email that I stumbled on from a past public records request shows that, at least at one time, the board’s plan was for the compliance department’s responsibilities to “fall under one umbrella of the Board of Education Legal, Compliance and Advocacy Department.”

In spring, the board put out a request for proposals from search firms to find a chief. “The CLCAO serves as a trusted advisor to the Board of Education, helping translate complexity into clarity, risk into strategy, and obligation into opportunity,” the RFP notes.

To the best of my knowledge, however, this position was never filled. Districtwide salary records don’t show anyone with that title working at CMS. The same records show Heheberger listed under the “Office of Legal, Comp and Advo” – which raises questions about whether the Office of General Counsel still reports directly to the board or to this new office with no chief.

I’ve tried to find a board organizational chart that fully explains the reorganization of board staff, but I have been unable to find one. I’ve also not heard any clear explanation for the purpose of the board’s reorganization. I’ve requested information from the board and didn’t hear back by deadline today, and I’ve also filed a public records request for an organizational chart last week that has not yet been filled.

What is clear is that the changes in board staff alarmed some current and former officials, as the Charlotte Ledger reported Monday.

Former board member Melissa Easley reflected on this and other changes in a recent Substack article.

“Put those pieces in chronological order, and they raise serious questions about governance, transparency, taxpayer money and what happens when the people and structures intended to serve as guardrails start disappearing,” Easley wrote.

She told me in an interview today that the old Office of Compliance and Ethics office wasn’t perfect, and many of its responsibilities and enforcement mechanisms were still being ironed out (indeed, there were at times questions about the office’s role). But she still worried about its dismantling, noting it had been responsible for creating a teacher hotline where they could report workplace concerns without fear of retaliation. It was also just another set of eyes to ensure the district was operating correctly.

“Making sure we’re in compliance there and we’re doing all the things and everybody knows where they’re supposed to go, and all that kind of stuff, and it was just yet another path of teacher voices that got destroyed,” Easley told me.

She didn’t know if keeping the chief compliance officer would have prevented the current controversies. But she expressed concern about Mayes’ departure and the undisclosed reasons behind it. She said Mayes acted as a check on the board, offering strict legal interpretations that didn’t always offer a lot of wiggle room.

“And I say that with the utmost respect, because she’s very good at what she does, and there’s a reason for that,” Easley said.

It’s been more than eight months since Mayes departed, and no new permanent general counsel — though Hehenberger is a CMS vet who served as deputy general counsel prior to stepping into the acting general counsel role. And as Hill pointed out in her memo, the board has turned to outside legal firms to carry out work that Hill said confused her. That includes the now-scrutinized contracts with Poyner Spruill to do work on an affordable housing project and a compliance assessment– something a chief compliance officer presumably could have handled.

“I believe the Board owes employees and taxpayers an explanation for why it employs more than a dozen attorneys but has retained two different law firms to conduct compliance reviews of finance and HR systems over the last six months,” Hill wrote.

Stone, for her part, told WFAE that she was concerned about the changes to board support staff, noting the loss of the board clerk and the fact that board communications had been transferred to the district.

“We were too light on support staff, and I still feel that way now we’re short a board clerk,” Stone said. “It’s just administrative support, I think, is what we might need help with. And just aligning resources so that we get things and board members are supported in ways that are meaningful.”

Stone, who’s in her first term, said she was concerned about the lack of a significant onboarding procedure for new board members. She added that she remembers the board staff changes from her first weeks but now questions whether they were the right moves.

“I don’t remember anything that sticks in my brain,” she said, “that says, ‘Oh, yeah, so that’s why we did this.’”

Correction: The email newsletter version of this story incorrectly stated the board clerk was reassigned. The clerk applied for another open position in the district.