According to Ricardo Hernandez, Pima County Superintendent of Schools chief financial officer, interviews for the Tucson Unified School District's governing board member position should be complete by the evening of Monday, Dec. 19.

"All but 9 candidates will be remaining by the end of today (Friday 12/16). The Committee will finish all interviewing of the 54 candidates by Monday night. They will then determine whether they will provide Dr. (Linda) Arzoumanian their decision or if they will need to do any additional screening. Based on those decisions, a final date by when Dr. Arzoumanian will name an appointee is also to be determined. We’ll know more after Tuesday when the Committee is scheduled to deliberate," Hernandez wrote in an e-mail to the Range.

We asked about potential conflicts and how each candidate was vetted. On the candidate forms, each person who applied was responsible for explaining any potential issues or conflicts, if any exist. Out of the 54 candidates interviewed by the committee only one potential conflict was brought up to the Range — candidate Robert Medler, VP of government affairs at the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

Medler's boss is Bill Holmes (the chamber's chief operating officer), who used to work as senior staff assistant to Arzoumanian. In his job he worked as the liaison between the county school office, the state Department of Education and the 17 Pima County school districts working in areas of educational technologies, grant writing and evaluation, and the federal governments E-Rate program.

When asked if this was a potential conflict brought up during the application and interview process, Hernandez responded: "All potential conflicts of interest both between candidates and the Committee members or the Superintendent have been disclosed and addressed as they arise. In the end, the Committee will base their decisions entirely on the information presented during the interviews and the applications, as well as any screening that happens after. Dr. Arzoumanian will only address those recommendations presented by the Committee."

On Medler's application he doesn't list this as a potential conflict, but does explain a felony charge he faced for a theft that occurred in a club he belonged to in college. Due to the fact he had no previous record, the charges were dropped through a deferred prosecution program he completed.

You can see the final list of candidates being interviewed right here:

TUSD_VACANY_LIST_OF_CANDIDATES_Final.pdf