Front Page  »  

Paso Robles superintendent slated to receive more than $200,000 in severance pay

December 13, 2018

Chris Williams

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

Despite departing the school district with depleted reserves and an approximately $3 million shortfall over the next couple years, outgoing Paso Robles Superintendent Chris Williams could receive more than $200,000 in severance pay. [Cal Coast Times]

Last week, less than four months after the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District board approved a new contract for Williams, the superintendent announced he is resigning. The district’s athletic director and director of human services, too, announced their resignations at a special board meeting last week.

Williams did not disclose why he was resigning, but he had clashed with a board member, who voted against his current contract, as well as with some individuals in the North County community. Also, Williams reportedly does not share the ideological bent of new school board members who were sworn in this week.

On Aug. 14, the school board approved a contract that gave Williams a base salary of $214,833 with the opportunity for annual raises through the 2021-2022 fiscal year. In line with state rules, the contract allows Williams to receive a maximum severance payment of one year’s salary, if the contract is terminated early.

The school board voted last week to accept Williams’ resignation. The board is now preparing to reach a settlement with Williams, which will likely include severance pay, though the amount under consideration is unclear.

As the board considers giving Williams severance pay, the district is faced with a $2.1 million shortfall for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, according to an interim financial report for the current school year. An additional $800,000 in cuts are needed for the 2020-2021 budget. The cuts could result in teacher layoffs.

In addition to ending with a budget shortfall, Williams’ tenure as superintendent is drawing to a close with the school district’s reserve for economic downturns almost completely depleted. Since 2015, the reserve fund has decreased from 10 percent of the size of the general fund to 1.73 percent, according to the interim financial report.

State rules require districts of Paso Robles’ size to maintain a 3 percent reserve.

Williams began serving as Paso Robles’ superintendent in 2014. He is slated to formally leave the position in February.

Meanwhile the district has hired former Paso Robles superintendent and former county superintendent of schools, Julian Crocker, to serve as interim superintendent following Williams’ departure. Though Williams is still employed by the district, he was replaced at Tuesday’s board meeting by current County Superintendent of Schools James Bresica.


Loading...
Subjects:             
Related:


6 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Before he gets that 200K check we should know exactly what the problem was! Maybe this guy should be in jail, we don’t know!


14

Don’t you know, very little is a crime when you work in the public sector. Theft isn’t seen as a crime, if fact often it is even rewarded.


14

OK everyone i suggested that this would happen in the original posting. This makes it quite apparent that this person just didn’t resign. He resigned in-lieu of being fired. In their contracts there is usually a clause that states whether they resign/or got fired with cause or without cause. These outlandish give away’s are dealt out in order to protect the agency for their incompetence or other act that they have caused. The people of Paso Robles should be outraged at the school board and demand an absolute transparency of the negotiation. Of course they will say that they can’t do that. In that case the people of Paso Robles should call for the immediate resignation for those on the school board that approved this. I hope that Cal Coast News will post a copy of the contract terms on this web page. How many of you were paid a severance whenever you resigned from a job. This should be a criminal act for wasting the tax payers mo0ney.


26

$200,000 + even if you resign! Maybe, just maybe if you had been fired or ‘unfairly’ terminated; but voluntarily resign!!. With contracts like that, everybody should encourage their kids to gets jobs with school district or city or county. Get a overly paid job, screw up, but get fantastic performance reviews and salary increases – and then decide to voluntarily quit – and still get paid. Wow!!


23

This is the way the Establishment Works. You little people pay up…pay your Taxes and Fees while WE the Smarter of you that work for the Government suck you dry. We need more money….we need more benefits…ha ha ha….pay up suckers!


20

Good God the world has gone mad.


19