Official: File found inequities in district

Russellville school salaries examined

Some inequities in Russellville School District employee salaries were discovered in a recent investigation done at the request of the School Board, interim Superintendent Andrew Vining said Friday.

The independent investigation was requested March 4 by the Russellville School Board, which retained Friday Eldredge & Clark LLP to conduct the review.

The finished report was released to the board Tuesday but was not provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette until late Thursday after multiple Freedom of Information Act requests were made over three days.

The law firm was asked to investigate three allegations: whether the district properly followed classified salary schedule policies; the adequacy of responding to allegations of sexual misconduct against district administrative personnel; and whether the district’s chief financial officer violated the district’s nepotism policy.

Vining said the report did not indicate that anything relating to the classified salary schedule had been “improper or illegal.”

The report does not name any specific personnel responsible for the different tasks. It is typically the superintendent’s responsibility to present

hiring recommendations to the board. The district’s personnel policy directs that newly hired classified employees be hired at the minimum Step 1 on the district’s 25-step salary scale.

The superintendent also has discretion to recommend an employee for higher placement on the pay scale, up to a Step 5, to compensate for additional experience, education or other attributes, but it must be presented to the board.

“It was done correctly, but what could’ve been done better is spelling out more clearly those pay raises that were done by discretion,” Vining said. “What they did was not wrong, the action was fine. The board approved what the superintendent recommended, but it could’ve been more clearly done.”

He said he has sought out the help of the Arkansas School Board Association and the Arkansas Public School Computer Network to review the district’s accounting practices and policies.

Vining, who moved to Russellville in September, came out of retirement in late April to step in as Russellville’s interim superintendent after the board fired longtime Superintendent Mark Gotcher on April 21.

Board President Chris Cloud — who lost his Zone 1 seat on the board in an election Tuesday — said in a statement at the time that

Gotcher’s low score on his annual performance evaluation by the board figured into the termination decision.

Gotcher’s relationship with the board and district staff saw “a range of issues” in the three months since the evaluation, Cloud said, so the board decided the district “needed new leadership.”

PAY SCALE

Khayyam Eddings, an attorney with Friday Eldredge & Clark, said in the report that after reviewing personnel hiring records between 2014 and March 2021, it was discovered that there were no new hires between 2014 and 2017 who were placed above Step 5.

“However, beginning in 2018 newly hired employees in the Russellville School District were routinely placed above Step 5 on the Classified Staff Salary Schedule,” Eddings said. “Current employees who transferred to other positions within the Russellville School District were also, at times, placed in higher salary steps.”

The district’s policy of requiring the superintendent to recommend an applicant’s placement on the salary scale to the Board of Directors has not been followed since 2015, according to the report.

Examples included an applicant with five years of employment history who was hired into the district and placed at Step 20. The employee’s recommendation for hire was presented to the School Board, but the recommendation for placement on the salary schedule was not.

Another employee was hired in 2018 and assigned to Step 12, then increased to Step 19 the next school year while maintaining the same position, resulting in a $7,000 pay increase. Neither the original salary nor the increase was presented to the board for approval.

In 2019, a former bookkeeper was assigned to Step 10 when she transferred to a payroll specialist position. Once in the new role, she was raised to a Step 21, resulting in a pay raise of more than $9,000.

Again in 2019, a preschool aide went from Step 5 to Step 20 when she transferred to a clerk/typist position, resulting in a $5,400 pay increase. The step increase was not presented to the board for approval but was noted in handwriting on the aide’s contract.

The investigation also found discrepancies among the district’s nursing staff. Among the 11 school nurses employed during the 202021 school year, only four are receiving credit for years of previous nursing experience, as per district policy.

Eddings said in the report that the examples quoted were “only a sampling of employment and salary placement decisions that have created questions regarding the salary equity” among employees.

The investigation also found that two employees tried repeatedly to meet with district administrators in April 2020 concerning salary inequities but were not successful in gaining an audience.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

The Russellville School District’s Title IX coordinator received allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct from three individuals, according to the report.

Because the complainants did not wish to file formal complaints, the Title IX coordinator notified Gotcher, then the superintendent, of the allegations.

When Gotcher was interviewed for the investigation by Friday Eldredge and Clark, he said the complainants did not want to be interviewed so he respected their wishes. He said he “strongly admonished” the accused and documented the conversation in a letter placed in that person’s personnel file.

There was no indication in the report of whether any district policies had been violated.

NEPOTISM ALLEGATION

A Russellville district student was hired to work part time in the office of Chief Financial Officer Justin Robertson where a relative worked full time, according to the report.

Robertson told investigators that the student worked only on an intermittent, as-needed basis, and the job was not long-term.

“Robertson reported that he, not the student’s family member, supervised and directed the student’s work,” Eddings said in the report.

“The board approved what the superintendent recommended, but it could’ve been more clearly done.” — Andrew Vining, interim superintendent

FOLLOW-UP

Eddings said in the report that the goal of the investigation was to provide the board with a complete report of the facts.

“We have not reached any conclusions on the issues discussed herein, as that was not part of our engagement,” he said. “We hope that this report provides the Board with information needed to resolve, where necessary, the identified issues and allegations.”

Vining said he has committed to both the classified and certified employees’ personnel policy committees to review the existing salary schedules and find solutions to discrepancies.

“We can’t decrease somebody’s pay,” he said. “We have to figure out an equitable way to address the issues.”

Vining said when he presented a salary request to the board at its meeting last week, that he arrived prepared with a spreadsheet and other pertinent information.

“We have to be as transparent as possible,” he said.