|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Mountain View Whisman school board is facing scrutiny over the resignation agreement with former superintendent Craig Goldman, signed late last year, which granted him $231,567 in severance pay.
Goldman’s pending departure from the district was announced last November, and the agreement worked out between him and the school board in closed session meetings included a lump sum payment to him equal to 12 months’ salary. The move was announced as a resignation, not a termination.
To Huff Elementary parent Brett Pauly, something didn’t seem quite right.
“When I first read this, I thought, ‘I’ve never heard of somebody being paid to quit. How do I sign up for this deal?'” Pauly said.
At the Feb. 5 board meeting, Pauly called into question the district’s official story — that Goldman resigned, initiated the resignation agreement and got a severance of nearly a quarter-million dollars. He said the settlement payment means the board either forced Goldman out and compensated him with 12 months of pay, or it gave him way more than what he was entitled to through a mutual agreement.
The only reference in Goldman’s employee contract to severance pay pins such a payout to termination without cause; under that circumstance, he would have been entitled to severance equal to 12 months of pay. In this case, the payout is rooted solely to the terms of the resignation agreement rather than his employment contract, according to board president Chris Chiang.
Although the employee contract does not require the board to give Goldman a payout for resigning, Chiang said, the the money is not a gift of public funds, and state law allows for the board to pay Goldman for his work and agreement to the contract.
Chiang said the board granted Goldman the settlement money in exchange for his signing an agreement in November that includes termination of employment, a non-disparagement agreement and a waiving of his legal right to sue the district and the school board.
Chiang approved the settlement agreement with the rest of the board, and said he felt it was important and “in the best interests of the district” for them to get the legal right waived.
Pauly also raised questions over transparency, particularly in regard to whether the district can decide the superintendent’s severance in closed session. He said the board’s decision to hash out, draft and sign the resignation agreement with a quarter-million dollars of severance attached to it could constitute a Brown Act violation.
It turns out that might be the case, according to Nikki Moore, an attorney for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Moore said the only legal way to discuss severance compensation is in open session. A caveat to that, she noted, is if there is anticipated or potential litigation that could arise from discussion over severance negotiations; but if that’s the case, the closed-session agenda notice must cite those litigation concerns. No closed-session agenda leading up to the resignation, however, mentions litigation.
Greg Dannis, a lawyer with the Dannis Woliver Kelley law firm, helped facilitate the district throughout the resignation process to make sure there was no Brown Act violations. Dannis maintains that the school board did not violate the Brown Act in discussing Goldman’s resignation and voting on the resignation agreement in closed session.
“Boards settle lawsuits (and) employment matters in closed session all the time,” Dannis said.
Chiang said he would be willing to consult with additional attorneys to ascertain whether there had been a Brown Act violation in the way they approved the resignation agreement. He acknowledged that the board has been split on whether to handle personnel issues, such as Goldman’s resignation, in or out of closed-session meetings.
Board member Steve Nelson, regularly a proponent of open meetings and transparency, said he believes there is no issue with the settlement agreement or the way the resignation was discussed in closed session, which is how the board handles most personnel issues.
“All contracts, union contract, real estate contract, employment contract, are usually done in closed session,” Nelson said.
The timing on Goldman’s announced resignation was also dubious, Pauly said. He pointed out that discussions over the former superintendent’s resignation had been going on in closed session for about a month prior to the announcement, despite no closed-session agenda reflecting that it was happening until Nov. 13.
“Even though you knew all of this was going on for a month, you didn’t say anything until after the November election,” Pauly said. “If you don’t think this would have been a hot issue in the November election, you are sorely mistaken.”
Some state lawmakers are contesting the idea that superintendents should be able to secure severance deals for as much as 18 months of work through contract termination. State Assemblyman Luis Alejo proposed a bill earlier this month, AB 215, that would put a strict cap on how much money a superintendent can get when employment is terminated.
“The combination of high-paying salaries and high superintendent turnover is an issue that does not receive enough attention,” Alejo said in a statement on his website. “The two factors combined create a problem of excessive severance packages at the expense of students and taxpayers.”
Alejo attempted in 2013 to pass a bill that would restrict severance payouts to just six months, but the bill was defeated. It was opposed by the Association of California School Administrators.
There may or may not be a technical violation of the Brown Act. There is certainly a perceived problem which was foreseeable. It should be the goal of the school board to be fully transparent and avoid any perception that it is engaging in backroom dealings.
When my husband, Brett, made the comments at the February 5th meeting, the item was not on the agenda, so the trustees did not have to respond to it. If you would like to support us as we push for changes to prevent this from happening on this or future Boards, please email the Trustees at trustees@mvwsd.k12.ca.us to ask that they put this item on the March 5th meeting agenda and show up at the meeting.
This is public funds set aside for the students. This and future boards need to be more thoughtful and transparent in how they spend our money. $230,000 can go a long way in our cash-strap schools.
Below is the video of the comments Brett made during the February 5th meeting.
http://youtu.be/oqS1vFUEPDc
Mr. Pauly:
Here is where you sign up. Two advanced degrees, 25 years of increasingly responsible experience, literally hundreds of late night board meetings.
Add in a couple of years of intimidation and workplace issues for which you agree not to litigate, and there you are. If you want somebody to blame, check which trustees have been inclined to deal with the former superintendent in a mostly unprofessional manner. Don’t forget to vote when the trustee(s) in question run for reelection. Superintendents are expensive because most school boards have at least one bad actor elected to “serve the public interest”.
As Brett has so simply and elegantly articulated, we lack transparency on the board. Decisions are made made posthaste and behind closed door sessions. I urge everyone to come to the next board meeting and voice their disapproval and demand we get answers and changes for this lack of transparency.
Sanjay Dave
And us the working stooges are lucky to even get 2 months of severance if any at all.
Must be good to be part of the upper class, where they throw money at people left and right. No wonder our schools are cost the taxpayers so much money.
It’s a shame that parents and teachers have to rally for months to get a small pay raise for teachers to keep up with the cost of living. Standing in board meetings, showing support – just for a small % increase. Yet the board approves- in a questionable and non-public manner, a huge payout to the former Superintendent. Now watch the board make equally non-public (with rubber stamp committees for a cya) decisions with the rest of the public’s money, to get big health insurance coverage for themselves. Meanwhile MV children sit in outdated facilities that are not even to code and teachers scramble to share limited, if any materials on new Common Core curriculum. I would encourage people to attend these meetings, demand answers and explanations.
Taking educational money from the children is like taking candy from a baby. Goldman you should be ashamed, but you are probably laughing all the way to the bank. That’s the tax money we gave to support the children, not you. Please give it back to the children that you claim to care so much for. Do the right thing!
I’m not understanding why there was a severance payout at all if this was truly a resignation. I’ve actually never heard of such a thing. What would Goldman have been suing the district over? Why was this a fear?
Thank you all for the supportive comments. Clearly this money is far better spent in the classroom. I think about the thousands of hours that the parents of our schools spend in fundraisers every year, and that the money collected for all those efforts roughly adds up to the same amount as this one decision by our board.
For our next Superintendent contract, I would like to submit a 90/90 approach:
90 days’ notice if the Superintendent wants to quit mid-year.
90 days’ severance if the board dismisses him/her
I am interested if others have ideas on this too!
School District leadership is like much of life, you get what you pay for. Given local political history, the 90/90 approach outlined above would likely remove most of the best candidates from the nationwide search pool. So let’s just give up the search, promote from within, then when you don’t like that Superintendent there is no severance, they can just go back to being a classroom teacher until they find another leadership position. Pretty tough to have it both ways in a high cost area. Most people who lead organizations with $50 million in annual revenue likely get some severance, most salaried employees clearly don’t. We get to decide whether we want a competent manager or a visionary leader. You can’t get the second while paying for the first. The difference should be at least $100K/yr.
i think “Old Steve” is really Craig Goldman.
If a “Quitter” quits and doesn’t live up to his contract (word) he is entitled to
nothing.
In fact he should be belly bumped out the door.
This needs to be reversed to make it “right.
Let’s get on it and do that people.
Closed session??? What is this Russia??? That is our money.
@ You’re defending this? I seriously doubt that “Old Steve” is Craig Goldman! I can assure you that he’s thrilled to be gone and has moved on from the “hostile working environment” created by one Board member. Actually, this situation was created by the community members that voted this person into office who does not have the good of the district as his overarching goal. Lesson to be learned by voters: just because someone puts “teacher” after their name on a ballot does not mean it’s really, really true in the sense that most of us would think that word means. It wasn’t in this case. Voters need to vet their school board candidates better. You are entrusting your student’s education to them!!
I’d like to suggest to all those who are criticizing the Board to learn about contract law and the Brown Act. The Board, in this case, acted the way it is required to act when dealing with personnel issues. You might not like this process but that’s the way it is – it’s the law! Changes re transparency and severance that you want to implement cannot and will not happen at the District level. Don’t waste your time dealing with so called lack of transparency – focus instead on real issue – removing the trustee who created the “hostile” work environment and caused an outstanding,excellent superintendent to leave. Focus on the trustee who has damaged the reputation of the district and will probably cause the ‘pool” of interested candidates for the superintendent position to be very limited. This person has damaged the district much more and for a much longer period of time than the severance package ever will.
Luckily for the district, the remaining four trustees seem dedicated, knowledgeable, reasonable and committed to the good of the district and the success of every student. The community needs to appreciate them – rather than criticize them – and hope that they stay the course. They do act in your best interests and definitely were in this contract situation.
@ Observer, there were problems with Goldman’s demeanor and management style long before the board member to which you refer was elected. Unfortunately there is such a climate of intimidation that you won’t hear any of Goldman’s subordinates publicly say anything negative about him.
Of course Goldman is thrilled to walk away with a lump sum payment at the discretion of the board and to the detriment of the children in Mountain View!!!
@ Observer, are you saying that Goldman deserved this payment as damages for dealing with a “hostile working environment created by one board member”?
I do agree wtih you, that we need to look at the board candidates carefully, voters have made some mistakes there:
Our current board is in support of education ONLY as it applies to low performing students. They lack general pathos around access to the best resources and education to the “rich” (their own reference) schools such as Huff and Bubb. Don’t ALL children deserve this to succeed? I think it’s unfortunate that the current board is operating with such biases against the “rich” or middle class of MV – and now they just stuffed Goldman’s pockets!
I bet this issue Mr. Pauly so articulately thought through, will never make the public agenda. Go on trustees, prove me wrong.
Mr. Pauly’s 90/90 (recast as X/Y, Notice/Severance ): humm, As a MVWSD Trustee, part of the reason I VOTED AGAINST Goldman’s replacement March 2014 contract was the 2 wk/52 wk (Notice / Severance) terms. Pauly – if you want a ‘cast in concrete’ Board Policy (90/90 or 4 wk / 26 wk) you need to submit ASAP a written Agenda Item for a Board VOTE* to add a Board Policy**. See how THE VOTE goes! Discussion (comments/talking) does not change Policy!
SN is a MVWSD Trustee. *BB 9322(a) **4xxx series
Since there are others in the community interested, the information shared with Mr. Pauly and MV Voice, and is shared with you below:
The board will be asking the school district’s attorney to release as much information as legally possible regarding Craig Goldman’s settlement that was unanimously voted on by the board, and that will be released electronically in a report by the attorney. When that report is ready, the board will place the presentation of the report on the agenda soonest after its preparation. It will be online before that meeting.
Looking forward, the school board will be discussing the issue of future superintendent compensation at our March 12 meeting.
This March 5, under future agenda items, the board will discuss if it wishes to place on a future agenda the separate issue of examining the general process on how the board announces pending contracts (of certain dollar amount) that aren’t currently covered by state code. The March 5 discussion will not be a substantive discussion on revising board bylaws, but the preceding procedural discussion of whether or not there is board interest, if there is, when in the future to discuss it.
Together we make the district better for Mountain View’s children. A reminder that the superintendent search survey deadline is today, Friday 2/20 by 4pm:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MVWSDSurvey (in English and Spanish)
The in-person community superintendent search input dates are:
Tuesday, February 24, 6:30-8:00 PM
Castro Multi-Use Room (Spanish translation provided)
Wednesday, February 25, 6:30-8:00 PM
District Office Board Room (Spanish translation provided)
Thursday, February 26, 6:30-8:00 PM
Crittenden Middle School Multi-Use Room (Spanish translation provided)
The survey responses, along with the in-person community input meetings will be used to develop the candidate profile and search criteria.
The board works for the community and is grateful to those who attend board meetings http://mvwsd.org/district-info/board-of-trustees/board-meetings or reach out to have individual meeting with your trustees if that is more convenient. You may also email trustees at: trustees@mvwsd.org
Christopher Chiang
President of the Mountain View Whisman School Board
Email: cchiang@mvwsd.org
stealing from the children.
“All contracts, union contract, real estate contract, employment contract, are usually done in closed session,” Nelson said.
This is the problem here!! This is how the unions ramped up everyone’s salaries and pensions to unsustainable levels.
Maybe Mr. Transparency Board member Steve can fully disclose the amount of teaching he really did. As this was on his resume when running. Was it 3 days subbing at a middle school and then asked not to return? Maybe the voters were fooled or maybe we should do our homework before picking. We now have 2 of these rude board members who think their job is to direct the schools rather than oversee. Thanks to the board we have spent down our reserves on a huge raise to teachers, overspent on construction ..because they can’t make a decision and now they want “special programs” we can’t pay for at Castro.
Good luck finding a new Super! People within don’t want the job because of the board and the candidates know the board is “hard to work with” .
Exactly: A Grandstanding teacher’s union, A Board of Trustees that is at least complicated, Parents demanding a Palo Alto Education on 2/3 of the per student budget, and a persistent achievement gap all are committed to narrowing. Throw in folks who think the preceding leader was overcompensated, and all the focus groups to determine valuable qualities of the next leader. At least it should be a small pool of applicants to review. If the best candidate is from beyond the Bay Area, will we also upbraid our elected board if they feel compelled to offer a generous housing suppport package, in addition to the salary commensurate with experience?
@ Samuel
Talk about hitting the nail on the head…
Will try not to reiterate any of the great comments already made.
It is one thing to post an opinion and quite another to attend Board meetings. Most are boring and not surprisingly most decisions have already been made at the closed-door session preceding the open session. Is it fair that Goldman got a full year’s salary? No. Is it fair that the board pushed him out? No. Could he have handled himself better? Yes. How many of us would withstand the public criticism he endured? Not me.
Goldman did A LOT for the district during his time and put up with a lot. How many of you witnessed first-hand the contrived grandstanding of the teacher’s union at the Sep 4, 2014 meeting? Before MVEA spoke on Sep 4, Goldman made an open apology for his lack of composure at a previous meeting.
MVEA’s turn: Ochoa bangs his fist on the podium ala “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”, a newbie teacher talks about how they can’t afford to by a home in MV. My spouse and I were 32 & 36 with Masters degrees before we could buy a home. Teachers work hard every day preparing 25+ students for the future. They have tenure, generous benefits, and dedicated professional development time. MVEA chose not to negotiate salary last April so they could orchestrate a work-to-rule in August and get more parent support.
Dr. Skelly has commented on how cooperative Goldman was sharing information when he took over as interim. There is a cost for that. If you are forced to leave mid-term and you stick around to train the new guy, you deserve something. Maybe not 1 year but something.
Our schools are suffering in the same state I recall as a student in the 70’s and 80’s. Same issues then, same issues now. Teachers are overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. Teachers have no aides unless they have a special-needs student. Facilities are falling apart. Tremendous lack of funding causes schools in rich neighborhoods to have a huge advantage over lower income neighborhoods. Libraries have zero public funding.
If you are a parent (or not) and want to help our failing schools, volunteer at your local school, attend board meetings and do your research before voting. Don’t wait until you read about it in the Voice.
I think we need better lawyers to write better contracts. This situation has happened twice in a row and we need to contract proof these situations. Dear Lawyers, please be smart and anticipate situations in the future.
Affair proof contracts please and in the situation of Mr. Goldman, it was his job to work with the elected board members, however difficult, and so on and so forth….
I am not sure if I want to know what fools we all were to give him a year salary that could have done so much for our large classroom sizes all the things that insightful people have mentioned above.
Greg Dannis’ law firm is a revolving door of attorneys. No one stays at the firm, and it’s pretty clear why.