PUSD Fires Supe and Sues For $345K

[svelte]

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/11/education-poway-john-collins-fired/

Wow. If those accusations are true, that’s pretty outrageous.

Wasn’t it under his watch that the equally outrageous bond was issued? Sounds like PUSD has some issues with how they handle their finances…probably a lack of checks and balances.

[NotCranky]

Why not criminal charges?

[Doofrat]

Great article! I can’t wait to find out why this guy had such “financial hardships” even after making so much money for so many years, and then misappropriating so much more.

[bearishgurl]

As a former “bureaucrat,” you can’t tell me that these clowns who possess a “Doctorate in Education” don’t realize that they are misappropriating public funds to themselves or that “double-dipping” at the rate of 200%+ is prohibited under the rules and state law!

[XBoxBoy]

Worth noting, a VOSD article states that Collins is the second-highest paid K-12 public school educator in the state. For me, this incident drives home the fact that just because you pay your Big Boss (whether CEO or School Superintendent) big bucks doesn’t mean you get someone who will do a good job. Every time I hear someone say that CEO’s (or whatever title) needs to be paid that amount so that we can get someone capable, I can’t help but think that person doesn’t have a clue how the world really works.

[bearishgurl]

This part of the article svelte posted is bordering on incredible:

The audit also identified $24,494 in other payments that it said violated district policies, including purchasing card expenses and revolving cash fund payments. A number of those far exceeded the $150 limit for the fund, including one advance of $17,000, which Collins took against a vacation payout.

According to the list of charges, although there were limits on that fund, “Collins used his position as superintendent to circumvent those controls.”

The charges also reveal a text message to his wife, describing financial hardship, and noting that he had found a way to resolve it.

“He did in fact find a way — misappropriating public funds through the revolving cash fund,” the charges state…

(emphasis mine)

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/11/education-poway-john-collins-fired/

I’m sorry …. WTF? This couple whose kids are likely grown can’t live off ~$455K per year? WTH is going on here? Does someone have a gambling or drug problem??

From a link from the PUSD article:

Last month, the board scheduled the July meeting to end Collins’ leave and the district’s audit of his pay and benefits, and voted to hire Edward Velasquez as interim superintendent, starting Aug. 1.The vote to hire Velasquez was 4-1 last month, with trustee Andy Patapow opposed.

Velasquez has recently served as interim superintendent of the Alpine School District, and was formerly the superintendent and chief of school police for the Montebello Unified School District in Los Angeles County. Since retiring from that post in 2013, he has served as interim superintendent of the San Ysidro School District in 2015 and in his current position in Alpine.

Velasquez cites 38 years of experience as a school administrator and educator, with a specialty in working with “at-risk” youth.

Poway Unified will pay him $75 per hour for no more than 560 hours per fiscal year, with no vacation or sick leave….

(emphasis mine)

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jul/10/education-poway-superintendent-john-collins/

A max of $42K year for a supe is a good deal for the PUSD at this time, due to the Board having to sue to collect ~$345K in what appears to be “self-directed overpayments” from its longtime enterprising, self-serving Supe who was just fired, John Collins. Velasquez will obviously be a “reemployed annuitant” and under state law cannot work more than half time and still collect his entire school pension every month. In addition, a “reemployed annuitant” is not allowed to accrue any more service time for pension-calculation purposes.

The Superior Court of SD County regularly uses RA’s for judicial appointments it cannot yet fill and for vacation/disability leave fill-ins, as do other county agencies for (temp or not yet approved) appointments it must fill immediately with experienced retirees ready to work with no training. No particular length of service is guaranteed as RA’s are typically used on an as-needed basis. It’s good to see that the PUSD found a competent, very experienced individual who is willing to help them out of this jam.

I’ve long maintained that school superintendents (esp those of large districts) are corrupt with power and will do anything to maintain their “student numbers” which keep their sphere of influence (size of umbrella) continuing and viable. For many of them, their only concern is the size of their pay pkg and the size of their potential pensions. We had one here at SUHSD who last served as its Supe from approx Jan 2012 thru mid 2014. He has literally “made the rounds” (from CVESD to SUHSD to svelte’s neck of the woods to a short stint at O’side, IIRC) and was actually then rehired by SUHSD, only to be let go two years before his contract expired! The SMUSD actually felt they had to “buy out his contract” for $410K just to get rid of him early! Of course, a couple of months after he was let go at SUHSD, the Board found out that he was actually collecting a school pension during the first *year-plus* of his latest contract!

CHULA VISTA — Sweetwater Superintendent Ed Brand, who collected a pension while he was paid to lead the district for over a year, may lose more than $200,000 in future pension benefits because of rules that might have banned him from collecting the two checks at the same time.

Brand stopped taking the pension checks in October 2012 and the state has been reviewing the situation ever since.

“It’s been an open file those two years,” said Ricardo Duran, spokesman for the California State Teachers Retirement System…

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2014/sep/09/sweetwater-pension-superintendent-ed-brand/

With his years of service cobbled together from several school districts (leaving most of his posts involuntarily), he’s making out like a bandit as a retiree, even assuming monthly pension garnishments for improper “overpayments” taken in 2012/13 (if he will not pay it back in a lump sum).

Talking about the blind leading the blind and supreme incompetence, SUHSD takes the cake for that title! Ha, ha, I guess we should be grateful that they didn’t issue a passel of subprime construction bonds which local homeowners will have to pay back ten-fold!

I may have posted this link as well in the past describing the situation at SUHSD, but here it is again:

http://www.mauralarkins.com/EdBrandSweetwaterSuperintendent.html

The corruption at the top sorely needs to be systematically rooted out of CA public school systems. Districts in SD County are the absolute worst in this regard, IMO. It seems the local school boards feel that they must “recycle” the same clowns over and over, no matter which District they last crashed and burned in :=0

Thanks for posting svelte. Very enlightening and I shall keep this subject bookmarked.

[njtosd]

[quote=XBoxBoy]Worth noting, a VOSD article states that Collins is the second-highest paid K-12 public school educator in the state. For me, this incident drives home the fact that just because you pay your Big Boss (whether CEO or School Superintendent) big bucks doesn’t mean you get someone who will do a good job. Every time I hear someone say that CEO’s (or whatever title) needs to be paid that amount so that we can get someone capable, I can’t help but think that person doesn’t have a clue how the world really works.[/quote]

Sometimes the amount that people are paid is commensurate with their abilities. Sometimes it isn’t. The problem is that people don’t seem to be able to distinguish between a good applicant and a bad one. Or, they are forced to hire someone whose resume looks right even though they don’t seem like a fantastic candidate. The last principal at our local elementary was bad, and was quietly moved into a position where he didn’t have to deal with people.

[svelte]

It is just unbelieveable to me that thier accounting system and administration would be lax enough to let this happen. And thats being generous…the alternative is that it is corrupt enough to allow it to happen. Honestly i have always struggled to figure out what ppl see in pusd. It has never made any sense to me.

[EconProf]

A lot more people ought to be in trouble besides the former superintendent. Who approved those checks? Who signed them? Why didn’t annual audits reveal the misbehavior. The blame goes beyond one individual, and I’m surprised the reporter did not get into those others who were complicit.

[earlyretirement]

I long suspected back in 2011 that there were serious issues with the PUSD internal workings. One of the big reasons why I paid off my Mello Roos back in 2011.

I’m not surprised to read this. I wish these types of cases would end up with criminal action but it almost never does.

[Author]

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