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Mark Guydish Column

Monday, November 28, 2011

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Taxpayers deserve transparent superintendent contracts

Thursday September 08, 2011 | 03:08 PM

Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com

STATE AUDITOR General Jack Wagner took long-overdue action when he announced the audit of superintendent contract buyouts.

The move contrasts with past practice of scrutinizing buyouts only during regular district audits.

Wagner is limiting this review to four districts: Philadelphia, Allentown, Gettysburg and Central Dauphin. But the scope of his proposed work reaches far beyond. In a nutshell, a press release says Wagner’s office will be trying to:

Determine whether superintendent contracts contain “adequate separation provisions” to protect districts and taxpayers. My answer: Too often, no.

Determine whether the district provided sufficient information to taxpayers to justify the deals. My answer: Ditto.

Determine whether contracts were for the three-year minimum provided by state law. My answer: Hardly ever, around here.

Determine the true cost of the buyouts. Good luck with that; these things can get so convoluted they make the Minotaur’s labyrinth look like a slightly crooked line.

To determine whether the buyouts were “transparent and without confidentiality clauses,” so taxpayers could know what was going on. Here, at least, local districts have done passably well, but only after the fact. Once the deals are done, we get the details. Of course, it would be nice if taxpayers knew more before they were forced to pay someone to stop working.

Wagner’s decision comes on the heels of an insane buyout of Philadelphia School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman’s contract – she received a package worth $905,000 to exit early, in a district with a budget shortfall exceeding $600 million.

Of that $905,000, $405,000 was to come from private donations that had been pledged before the buyout was inked. But when Wagner announced his audit on Sept. 1, one of the objectives was apparently to find out who the Philly donors are.

On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that most donors had backed out – allegedly for fear of losing anonymity – leaving the district paying the full buyout.

What part of this makes sense?

No local districts are on Wagner’s list, and fortunately superintendent buyouts are pretty rare here. But we’ve seen two doozies.

Remember Pittston Area Superintendent Ross Scarantino? Even after he pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, the board felt his contract language made it difficult to fire him “for cause.” They actually had to negotiate a settlement in order to fire him without risk of a lawsuit!

Hazleton Area School Board agreed to a package worth nearly $180,000 to buyout then-Superintendent Sam Marolo two years before his contract expired.

As far as I’m concerned, the board never gave anything remotely resembling a satisfactory reason for terminating Marolo and spending all that money.

Wagner has called for banning “confidentiality clauses” in superintendent contracts that bar an explanation for a buyout.

Well, duh.

It behooves Harrisburg to craft a law assuring transparency and economy in such buyouts.

But school boards don’t have to wait. They can simply craft contracts that: 1) terminate employment with no benefits if convicted of a felony, and 2) provide a few months pay and insurance coverage upon early termination, unless otherwise negotiated by both sides.

About the Author

Mark Guydish covers education for the Times Leader. Reach him at (570) 970-7161 or mguydish@timesleader.com.

A West Hazleton native, I worked as a service technician repairing electronic mailing and shipping systems, a bike shop owner and an Emergency Medical Technician (among other jobs) before landing a reporter job at the Times Leader Hazleton Bureau in 1995. I started by covering primarily politics in Hazleton City and outlying municipalities, eventually became "social issues" team leader in the Wilkes-Barre office with the accent on education, and headed the Hazleton Bureau for a spell before returning to full-time reporting, my preferred position. I'm an avid cyclist and rode across the country in 1990, a trip of more than 5,000 miles from New Jersey to Seattle and down the coast to San Francisco. Years in the Boy Scouts made me a life long backpacker and camper, and I've yet to find a better way to enjoy the quiet lure of winter snow than cross country skiing.

Mark also writes a regular blog for timesleader.com.

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