When the Governor appoints someone from the State Board of Education or the University of Maine System Board of Trustees to also serve on the Maine Vocational-Technical Board, does that person have to step down from the Voc-Tech Board if they lose their seat on the original board, or do they keep their four-year term?

Plain-English summary

Governor John R. McKernan, Jr. asked AG James E. Tierney to confirm advice his staff had already given the Governor's office about how to read the term-of-office provisions of the Maine Vocational-Technical Board. Under 20-A M.R.S.A. § 12705, the Voc-Tech Board has nine appointed voting members and two ex officio voting members. Two of the appointed seats come specifically from other state education bodies: "One from the State Board of Education" and "One from the Board of Trustees of the University of Maine System." The question was whether those particular Voc-Tech trustees lost their Voc-Tech seats automatically if they stopped serving on the parent body, or whether they served the full four-year Voc-Tech term regardless.

Tierney concluded that the four-year term survived. The statute provides that "Members of the board of trustees shall be appointed by the Governor to 4-year terms of office, subject to review by the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over education and to confirmation by the Legislature." Confirmation is a separate, deliberate legislative act. By requiring that members be confirmed anew for a four-year Voc-Tech term, the Legislature signaled that the Voc-Tech seat is its own appointment, not a derivative of the parent board membership.

The structural argument followed. If the Voc-Tech term ended automatically when the parent-board membership ended, the four-year term provision in § 12705 would be read out of the statute for two of the nine appointed seats. The Department was unwilling to read the four-year term as nominal for some trustees and operative for others without a clearer signal from the Legislature. The text refers to the two seats as drawing from the State BoE and the UMaine BOT but does not condition the holder's tenure on continued membership in the parent body.

Tierney also flagged the option that the Legislature retained. Nothing in the opinion prevented the Legislature from amending § 12705 to tie Voc-Tech tenure to parent-board membership in those two seats. The opinion simply said the Legislature had not done so. Until it did, the four-year Voc-Tech term was a freestanding appointment under standard confirmation procedure.

Two ex officio seats, the Commissioner of Educational and Cultural Services and the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development, were structurally different. They served because of their state-government office, and a successor would take the seat upon assuming the office. The opinion's holding addresses the two appointed cross-board seats, not the ex officio seats.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1988. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Why didn't the Voc-Tech term end when the trustee left the parent board?

Because § 12705 required a separate Senate-confirmed four-year appointment to the Voc-Tech Board. The Voc-Tech seat is its own constitutional act of selection. Tying the term to continued parent-board membership would have made the confirmation process and the four-year term superfluous for two of nine appointed seats.

Could the Governor pick anyone from the State BoE or UMaine BOT?

The opinion treated the cross-board provision as a sourcing requirement at the time of appointment. The Governor had to pick the Voc-Tech appointee from the membership of the parent board as of the date of appointment, but the trustee's later separation from the parent board did not affect the Voc-Tech term.

What about the two ex officio seats?

Those are structurally different. The Commissioner of Educational and Cultural Services and the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development served ex officio. A successor in the Commissioner role would take over the Voc-Tech seat upon assuming the office. The 1988 opinion did not deal with ex officio successions; it addressed the two appointed cross-board seats.

Could the Legislature have written it the other way?

Yes. Tierney explicitly said the Legislature was free to amend § 12705 to provide that the two cross-board appointees served only as long as they remained on the parent board. The opinion was a statutory-interpretation answer to the law as it then read, not a constitutional bar.

Why did the Governor ask this question?

The Governor's office anticipated cases where a Voc-Tech trustee might lose a parent-board seat (term expiration, resignation, removal) and wanted to know whether the Voc-Tech seat went with it. Tierney's answer protected the holder for the remainder of the Voc-Tech term, providing institutional stability on the Voc-Tech Board.

Background and statutory framework

The Maine Vocational-Technical System was a separate post-secondary educational network distinct from the University of Maine System and from K-12 institutions overseen by the State Board of Education. The 11-member Voc-Tech Board provided governance, with nine appointed voting trustees and two ex officio voting trustees. The cross-board appointments built coordination across Maine's three state education systems into the governance structure. The 1988 opinion preserved that coordination by making the cross-board appointments freestanding four-year commitments.

Citations

• 20-A M.R.S.A. § 12705
• 20-A M.R.S.A. § 12705(1)
• 20-A M.R.S.A. § 12705(2)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.maine.gov/legis/lawlib/lldl/agops/agops.htm
• Original PDF: https://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/AG/Opinions/1988/ag_19880928b.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain, the linked PDF is authoritative.

88-8

JAMES E. TIERNEY
ATTORNEY GENERAL

STATE OF MAINE
DEPARTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
STATE HOUSE STATION 6
AUGUSTA, MAINE 04333

September 28, 1988

Honorable John R. McKernan, Jr.
State of Maine
State House Station #1
Augusta, Maine 04333

Dear Governor McKernan:

I am writing to confirm advice which was given recently by my staff to yours concerning the term of office of members of the Board of Trustees of the Maine Vocational-Technical System who are appointed from the State Board of Education and the Board of Trustees of the University of Maine System. The question was whether the term of such members on the Vocational-Technical Board expires if they cease to be members of either the Board of Education or the University of Maine Board, or whether they continue to serve a full four-year term of office. For the reasons which follow, it is the opinion of this Department that persons appointed to the Vocational-Technical Board under such circumstances serve for a full four-year term.

The constitution of the Board of Trustees of the Maine Vocational-Technical System is established by 20-A M.R.S.A. § 12705. That section, in pertinent part, provides:

1. Membership. The board of trustees shall consist of 9 appointed voting members and 2 ex officio, voting members as follows:

A. One from the State Board of Education;
B. One from the Board of Trustees of the University of Maine System;
C. Seven from the field of business and industry, the field of labor, the field of education and the general public;
D. The Commissioner of Educational and Cultural Services, or his successor, who shall serve ex officio; and
E. The Commissioner of Economic and Community Development, or his successor, who shall serve ex officio.

2. Appointment; terms. Members of the board of trustees shall be appointed by the Governor to 4-year terms of office, subject to review by the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over education and to confirmation by the Legislature....

The legislative history of this provision is silent as to whether members who are appointed pursuant to subparagraphs 1(A) and (B) are to serve full four-year terms on the Vocational-Technical Board, or are to serve on that board only as long as they continue to serve on the Board of Education or the University of Maine Board. Nonetheless, it seems clear that the Legislature, by requiring that such members be confirmed anew for a four-year term on the Vocational-Technical Board, intended that the term of office of such members not terminate with the end of their service on the Board of Education or the University of Maine Board. Any other interpretation of Section 12705 would read out of the statute the four-year term provision as it applies to members of the Vocational-Technical Board who are appointed from the Board of Education or the University of Maine Board. Needless to say, the Legislature is quite free to provide otherwise, and provide that persons appointed by the Governor from the membership of the State Board of Education and that of the University of Maine Board should serve on the Vocational-Technical Board only so long as they continue to serve on one of the other two. In the view of this Department, however, it simply has not done so.

I hope the foregoing satisfactorily resolves this question. Please feel free to let me know if any further advice is required.

JAMES E. TIERNEY
Attorney General

JET/ec

cc: Sen. Stephen C. Estes
Rep. Stephen M. Bost, Co-Chairman, Joint Standing Committee on Education
Eve M. Either, Commissioner, Department of Educational and Cultural Services
Audni Miller-Beach, Executive Director, Maine Vocational-Technical Institute System