FRANKFORT — The state's ouster of three members of the Russell County school board was overturned Thursday by the Kentucky Supreme Court.

        The justices said the Kentucky Board of Education exceeded its authority by basing ousters on a law forbidding school systems with budget deficits to spend money without written permission from the commissioner of education.

        The statute says any such expenditure is void — a penalty for the district, not for individual board members, the court said.

        The case involving board members Glenna Bertram, Clifford Wilson and the board chairman, Arles Hale, was unique in that they were portrayed as unwitting abetters. The district's former superintendent, Stephen Towler, took responsibility and said he did not know his spending had not been preapproved.

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