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Former school board member upset with employee buyout
BY KARYN SPORY
Mt. Pleasant News
Sparks flew during the first few minutes of the Mt. Pleasant School Board meeting Monday night as a former board member chastised the current board regarding finances.
Former school board member Lonny Morrow grabbed the microphone during the citizen comments portion of the meeting to voice his disapproval of the board buying out two employee contracts.
?You all know that I am a ...
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Sep. 30, 2018 9:50 pm
BY KARYN SPORY
Mt. Pleasant News
Sparks flew during the first few minutes of the Mt. Pleasant School Board meeting Monday night as a former board member chastised the current board regarding finances.
Former school board member Lonny Morrow grabbed the microphone during the citizen comments portion of the meeting to voice his disapproval of the board buying out two employee contracts.
?You all know that I am a retired educator. I support good education. But I am here as a taxpayer, an angry taxpayer,? he began. ?During your brief tenure you have frivolously given away, wasted, at least $98,764.00 of the taxpayers money for two buyouts of personnel.?
Morrow was indicating the contract buyout of Linda Brock, who had been selected as the interim superintendent following Mike Well?s departure and replaced by John Roederer, and Jane Ragen, Harlan Elementary principal.
Morrow estimated $50,264 had been spent on Brock, Ragan?s was in the ballpark of $45,000.
According to Brock?s settlement, the District agreed to pay Brock for her accrued compensation and benefits up to Oct. 7, 2015, as well as $31,380 and $6,799 for 13 vacation days accrued and $1,500 for her legal fees.
Board President David McCoid briefly responded to Morrow?s comments. ?My fellow board members said the other day, and I thought it was very appropriate with Mr. Morrow?s comments, that there is a lot more to running an education system than mere money,? he said.
As for Brock, McCoid said he and his fellow board members were ?addressing the problem your (Morrow) board created.?
?You hired Mike Wells as a superintendent and when you have a staff that votes with over 90 percent of ?no confidence? you?ve got a serious problem. His tenure certainly caused a split in this community,? said McCoid.
It was that riff that McCoid said he and the current board felt John Roederer would be able to begin patching. McCoid stuck with the reasoning he gave Brock when she was asked to resign last October, that, had the current board been in place, they would have unanimously selected Roederer for the interim superintendent position as he knew the district and the community. ?She would have been a caretaker. This community needed someone who could take control and start the healing process and that?s what happened when John took over,? he said. ?In my opinion, we would not be anywhere near where we are today if Linda Brock had continued to be the interim superintendent. Her buyout was money well spent.?
As for Ragen, McCoid said he would encourage anyone to speak to staff in Harlan?s building to get a sense for what the environment had been like.
McCoid added that factoring in savings from using existing personnel to cover the interim principal position, the district was really only spending $18,000.
The check cut for Ragen, however, was for approximately $45,000.
Closing out the citizen comments, Todd Batey briefly spoke about Morrow?s comments and the fierce political atmosphere the country is currently in. ?I couldn?t disagree more, but respect his opinion,? said Batey.
Batey said he appreciated the board?s work and their decisions as he felt the community was beginning to rebuild those bridges.