Baltimore County personnel board closes meeting to hear two grievance appeals

The Baltimore County Personnel and Salary Advisory Board voted on June 10 to close its meeting to the public so it could hear two grievance appeals, board Chair Jonathan Kranoff said.

Kranoff opened the virtual meeting, confirmed the date and attendees and apologized for earlier technical difficulties. “My name is Jonathan Kranoff. I’m the chairperson of the board today,” he said, and noted that board members Nancy Hafford and Jacqueline Eldridge Weaver and the board’s counsel, Lisa Smith, were present on the Zoom call.

Kranoff told participants the appeals involved personnel matters and “will be heard in what’s described as a closed session,” citing the Maryland Open Meetings Act as the basis for closing the discussion to the public. He invited a motion to close the public session so the board could hear the first grievance case. A board member said, “I’ll second that motion,” and the board then took a voice vote; three members responded “I,” indicating approval to move into closed session.

After the vote, Kranoff confirmed, “At this point, we have closed the meeting for the purposes of beginning the personnel case. So we are now recording this part of the meeting which is in a closed session.” The transcript records no further public discussion of the grievances and no substantive details about the cases were disclosed in the public portion of the meeting.

Because the matters cited are personnel grievances handled in closed session under state law, the board did not provide additional information during the public portion. The closed proceeding was recorded as part of the board’s meeting record; no outcomes or decisions from the grievance hearings were released in the public transcript.