The Washoe County School District Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a budget augmentation of half a million dollars to be provided to the district’s Office of General Counsel to fight lawsuits and complaints brought against the board by its own Trustee Jeff Church.
According to Chief General Counsel Neil Rombardo, all of the complaints and lawsuits brought against the district by Church have been meritless and have led to dismissals. Despite this legal track record, Rombardo said he believes Church will continue filing complaints and lawsuits.
Because of this, his office requested up to $500,000 to hire outside counsel, if needed, to address any additional lawsuits and complaints that could come.
Rombardo said since being elected Trustee Church has supported 22 and filed four other open meeting law complaints (OML) against the district; supported three and filed two other lawsuits against the district; and demanded an outside investigation against the former board president and legal counsel.
These 31 complaints and lawsuits have already cost the district $345,000 over a three-year period.
“You are not working together when you file lawsuits for the purpose of harassing volunteers and employees,” Rombardo said.
He said his office hopes to not have to use the additional funds for lawsuits and complaints, but that the decision lies with Church on whether they will need to.
Unless Church files additional complaints and lawsuits, Rombardo said the money will not be used.
In the last two months, Church has filed two lawsuits, and Rombardo said he believes that this “indicates a pattern that this behavior will continue and even escalate.”
Church said that in the lawsuits he filed there was no request for money. However, Rombardo said this is “untrue,” as both lawsuits ask for attorney’s fees and sanctions which would come directly from public funds.
The school district is not the only public entity Church has targeted. Church has filed lawsuits against other public entities as well. These include OML complaints against the Truckee River Flood Management Authority, a Petition for Judicial Review against Washoe County, a Petition to Summon Grand Jury against the City of Reno Fire Department, and two additional complaints against the City of Reno. All complaints were dismissed by the courts.
Both Rombardo and Board President Beth Smith brought up numerous examples of times that Church filed complaints or rallied other individuals to sue the district.
“I’m just begging the media to fact check, because I dispute almost each and every thing that was said.”WCSD Trustee Jeff Church
Smith pointed out that Church had filed a complaint in 2016, five years before he became a trustee, against WC-1, a ballot initiative to fund Washoe County Public Schools.
Rombardo presented to the board a number of statements made by Church while he was an active member on the board, from his own fliers and emails, as well as when he appeared on Monica Jaye’s radio show, where he rallied parents and community members to hire lawyers and sue the district.
During an April 21, 2021 interview on that radio show, Church told listeners to, “Donate to [a] legal fund; it ain’t free folks. Know any lawyers? Court may award attorneys fees.”
Rombardo also showed that out of the 22 OML complaints that Church supported, all 22 were dismissed, along with three dismissed lawsuits filed by individuals Church referred to as “his folks.”
Rombardo said this agenda item is “not about silencing Trustee Church,” and that he is welcome to file as many lawsuits as he wants to, nor is it about politics or personal, but simply that the office needs to prepare for what is reasonable to expect on a financial basis.
“It’s time to protect public education,” Rombardo said.
Church responds
Tensions were high between Church and other board members, as well as Rombardo, following Rombardo’s presentation.
Church denied the allegations against him. He also questioned whether Rombardo “was sure” about some of the accusations, such as Rombardo’s statement that many of the lawsuits were funded by another person, or that Church supported the various OML complaints and lawsuits filed by others.
Rombardo said that he had enough information to believe both the outside funding and the support of other complaints.
Smith said that Church had told other people that he supported those lawsuits, to which Church said he “disagrees with that.”
Later, Church said that he “disagreed with basically everything that has been said,” and that he has “prevailed on many [lawsuits].” He said that he has been awarded attorney fees and has even been praised by a judge who nicknamed him “the watchdog.” 
“I’m not going to go into great detail,” he said. “I’m just begging the media to fact check, because I dispute almost each and every thing that was said.”
During deliberations, Church said that if the allegations against him can be proven, such as his lawsuits being financed by another individual, or that he supported lawsuits filed by other individuals, he would immediately resign from his position on the school board.
Church also said that, in reference to other individuals filing OML complaints and lawsuits, for Rombardo to claim that Church has “some Rasputin-like control over people … I just dispute from start to finish some of those allegations that were made.”
He said there is nothing wrong with filing petitions or OML complaints.
“You’ve heard the animosity [from Rombardo],” Church said. “If you don’t think there’s animosity here, you’re drinking the bath water.”
“We’re not slandering anyone,” Smith said, to a public outcry from the audience.
“I am the watchdog, and I’ll stand by that,” Church said.
The funds
When deliberating on whether to allocate $500,000 to Rombardo’s office, both members of the board as well as community members during public comment were concerned with the dollar amount.
Trustee Diane Nicolet said she was “troubled” by the high price, and pointed out that $500,000 could be used to purchase four brand new school buses, continue a pilot project examining the use of single-use plastics in the district, revamp campus kitchens, give each school over $4,800 to use as they saw fit, hire additional teachers or police officers, and more. 
Trustee Colleen Westlake said the $500,000 being discussed is needed due to “someone’s feelings [getting] hurt,” referencing the petition Church made demanding an investigation into harassment concerns voiced by two female WCSD employees.
“This was meant to be a personal conversation,” she said. “There was no [punitive measures] against [Church], there was no action going to be taken against him. It was a conversation. It wasn’t anyone else’s business.”
Westlake added that had Church not publicized the harassment complaints, she and most others would never have known about them.
Trustees voted unanimously, with Church abstaining, to approve the increased budget for legal counsel.
Trustees vote against Church’s requested external investigation regarding whistleblowers
Following an August 2023 school board meeting, two female Washoe County School District employees made reports alleging that Trustee Jeff Church sexually harassed them, asking to remain anonymous.
According to emails included in Tuesday’s meeting agenda, Board President Beth Smith asked Church to attend a meeting with her in which she disclosed the complaint.
Rombardo said Smith relayed the information to Church “for his information only,” and that Church was told by Smith at the time that there was no action going to be taken against him and the matter would not go further. Despite remaining an internal matter, Church publicly denied the accusation of sexual harassment, including reaching out to a number of news agencies about the meeting with Smith.
“This has just snowballed from a little grain of sand into a mountain. No harm was going to be done here until Trustee Church brought it out.”WCSD Trustee Colleen Westlake
Church also filed a complaint against the district regarding the meeting, alleging that he asked for advance notice if his conduct or character was going to be discussed so that he might bring a witness or representative with him. He stated that he was “interrogated” by Smith and asked to sign a form, which he said he declined. He said he asked for an outside investigation into the complaint but was denied one by the district.
Trustee Diane Nicolet, who was present during the meeting, said there was no form and Church was never asked to sign anything. She said Smith described the situation appropriately, and Church was attentive and listened. Nicolet said she asked Church if he wanted to review her handwritten notes, to which he declined.
Nicolet said that Church told her his memory was “a little fuzzy” regarding the meeting, and so she wanted to correct the facts, which she said were incorrectly reported on by both Church and the media.
According to Rombardo, Smith told Church the names of the employees were being kept confidential as they feared reprisal. Church said that under public records laws, he was able to receive video evidence that showed “two females that seemed to be the ones in question” outside the August meeting and the video shows Church never approached them.
Church also alleged that the harassment allegations were a “conspiracy that could range anywhere up the chain, anywhere, even to the board,” which was why an independent investigation against the whistleblowers was necessary.
Rombardo responded to Church via email, stating that independent fact-finding investigations are not available for resolving public complaints, which must be treated as confidential to the extent possible, and that complaints must be filed within 30 days of an incident. He added that the request was also denied because there was no discipline, censure or adverse action ever mentioned and because Church’s request would make public the anonymous parties and would be considered a form of retaliation.
Following the denial of an independent investigation, Church then submitted a request for WCSD’s internal auditor to investigate the whistleblowers’ claims against him. That request went nowhere.
On Feb. 2, two female district employees informed district officials that they had received letters from a private investigator retained by Church’s attorney along with screenshots from surveillance photos taken outside of the district administration building. The private investigator had come to the conclusion that these two employees were the whistleblowers, and the letters were requests to interview the employees. Both employees forwarded the letters to their supervisors and said they were disturbed and felt intimidated and harassed.
Rombardo then sent a cease-and-desist letter to Church’s attorney, reminding him that sexual harassment whistleblowers are protected by law from harassment, intimidation and retaliation. 
During the meeting, Rombardo said the district would stand in contempt of court if ordered to reveal the identities of the whistleblowers because he feels strongly that the employees need to be protected.
Church said that earlier Tuesday, prior to the board meeting, he received information from a “true whistleblower” stating that the harassment complaint was fabricated and a “high-ranking” individual from the school district was part of the “conspiracy.”
“False accusations cause more harm than words can describe,” Church said. “The Me Too movement that I support when someone is accused of something, investigate and take action. When someone does a false accusation, that puts [the movement] back eons.”
Church said if legal counsel agreed, he would name the whistleblowers, but Smith stopped him, noting it was unrelated to the agenda item.
“It’s 100% related!” Church said. He said his attorney advised him to put it on the record so they wouldn’t be accused of a “cover-up.”
Trustee Colleen Westlake said she was “mind-boggled.”
“I find it hard to see where there was an attempt to harass from the beginning, that there was a need for a day in court, that there was a conspiracy, because this was two women [who] came forward who were uncomfortable about something … who were asked if they wanted to go any further, and they didn’t want to,” she said. “This was never going to go out to public fodder to cause damages to Trustee Church.”
Westlake said if she had made anyone uncomfortable, she would want to know to better serve her community.
“This has just snowballed from a little grain of sand into a mountain. No harm was going to be done here until Trustee Church brought it out.”
Trustees voted unanimously to reject Church’s request to fund an external investigation, with Church abstaining from the vote. The motion also directed the internal auditor and interim superintendent not to spend any WCSD resources conducting an external investigation that could lead to the harassment of whistleblowers.
