The Austin School Board personnel committee concluded during its meeting Monday that it would push back the process of filling the vacant school board seat until after the start of school year.

The seventh school board seat has been vacant since March, when the board removed Curt Rude. Since the vacancy, the school board narrowed down applicants to four finalists. The school board interviewed the applicants on July 20 and brought the selection to a vote. However, the process was halted by a three to three deadlock decision. Unable to resolve the vote, the process was moved to yesterday’s personnel committee to determine the next step in settling the issue.

The committee did discuss three possible methods to resolve the vote: the school board coming to a consensus, holding a survey with the public or starting the selection process over from scratch.

The committee indicated they were postponing the process to focus on more immediate issues.

“I think that at this particular time, with important things like the referendum coming up in the near future, that rather than letting this get in our way, it would be better to spend our energy and time on those issues. We shouldn’t let this seventh board member issue get in the way of this,” said Richard Lees, school board chair.

Lees added that the perception of an empty seat was a bigger issue than actual vacancy, since the missing person did not affect the board’s effectiveness.

Superintendent David Krenz concurred with Lees, stating that the seventh member would not change current issues like the referendum, since the rest of the school board already voted together on it.

The personnel committee consists of school board members Richard Lees, Don Fox and Jeff Kritzer. Krenz sat in on the meeting.

No official date has been set for the next time the personnel committee will discuss the vacancy.