Bill Brown, the Chair of the Board of Directors at The Maine Academy of Natural Sciences (MeANS), has resigned his position.
Brown was at the heart of the controversial hiring of his employer, Democrat Speaker of the House Mark Eves, last summer as president of Good Will-Hinckley.
[RELATED: Speaker Eves Loses Charter School Job]
Eves was unceremoniously fired just days after he was hired when Governor LePage threatened to withdraw his support for the school, which relies on government funding to operate. In voicing his opposition, LePage claimed that Eves’ hiring was the result of political cronyism.
“This back-room deal between cronies is exactly the kind of political corruption I came to Augusta to fight against,” said Governor LePage. “Speaker Eves has been an ardent foe of charter schools for his entire political career, then he turns around and gets hired to run a charter school—whose board is chaired by Eves’ own State House employee—for a cushy job worth about $150,000 in total compensation. ”
While Good Will-Hinckley originally claimed that Brown had recused himself completely from the hiring process, Brown’s later testimony before the Government Oversight Committee revealed that he had been much more involved in the hiring process than the school admitted.
[RELATED: Bill Brown’s Testimony Contradicts Prior Statements About Recusal]
Parents and alumni of MeANS have expressed concerns over how the Board handled the controversy, both in the hiring of Eves and then immediately folding under the governor’s pressure.
Vice Chair Doug Carr has been filling in since Brown resigned.
