School Boards Pay Big Money To Part With Leaders
DALLAS (AP) – State records show that Texas school boards have paid more than $7.7 million in severance pay over the past few years to buy out the contracts of superintendents.
School trustees have offered buyouts to 71 superintendents since 2005. The vast majority received six-figure checks.
The deals have become a common way for school districts to for part ways with their top school administrators. Among the largest settlements in recent years were in the Richardson and Irving school districts.
Though teachers have one- or two-year contracts, superintendents routinely have contracts of at least three years. School trustees also sometimes extend the contracts as shows of support during annual evaluations. To dismiss a superintendent and end the contract early requires a process that involves hearings, appeals and legal costs. So school boards choose to pay severance instead of paying salaries for the full length of superintendent contracts.
Some school district officials say the severances are easier and cheaper than trying to fire a superintendent. But critics say the big-money buyouts divert money from students.
Grapevine attorney Neal Adams, who has negotiated settlements for many superintendents over 25 years, says superintendents are not to blame. He says school trustees, often newly elected members who dislike the administrators, unnecessarily push superintendents out of their jobs or into retirement.
"My client, who is sitting there doing their job, should not be penalized because of the political whims of a school board," Adams said. "If they are playing that game, they are going to have to recognize the superintendent has a contract, and they need to be paid accordingly."
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said school boards must be held accountable for large payouts. She sponsored a 2001 law to rein in high-dollar payments.
"The payments take money away from the school programs," Van de Putte said.
Her law allows the Texas Education Agency to withhold state funds from a district that pays a settlement worth more than the superintendent's annual compensation. But large severances for superintendents have occurred consistently. School districts from across Texas have handed out the severance packages, with some of the most expensive since 2005 occurring in small, rural districts.
In the Uvalde school district, which has 5,000 students, Ramon Abarca received a $313,000 buyout in late 2006, worth nearly 2 1/2 times his annual compensation.
Former Jarrell ISD Superintendent Jamie Mattison, who oversaw a district of 975 students, resigned in 2009 after she faced a misdemeanor nepotism charge and a state board deemed her doctorate degree from a Caribbean college was substandard or fraudulent. But records show that Mattison did not leave until trustees offered her $198,000, which was $77,000 more than her annual compensation.
"There wasn't anything we could do to fire her," said Tim Wood, the Jarrell board president at the time. "There was just a breakdown in the relationships, and I don't think that's cause to fire her. At least the attorneys didn't think so."
The Richardson school district gave $300,000 to Superintendent David Simmons to resign in 2009 for undisclosed reasons. That same year, longtime Irving ISD Superintendent Jack Singley agreed to retire in 2009 after the district paid him $282,000.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
